Experience in Efficient Real Office Environment Modelling in Gazebo: a Tutorial

Abstract

New robotic solutions should be carefully verified before executing with real robots in real environments. Simulation provides a significant support in testing, but requires test sites with a high level of realism. In this case, 3D modeling can be used to produce the necessary 3D digital representation of real objects with varying difficulty. This article presents a step-by-step tutorial on modeling a realistic office environment. The environment contains a building skeleton frame, windows, building tiles, and furniture. Blender modeling toolset was used to create high-quality 3D models in the Gazebo simulator. The constructed virtual environment was validated with a lidar-based SLAM task for a UGV.