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Developing in MPA (Modal Pipe Architecture)

Before reading this page, see The Modal Pipe Architecture page!

This page will discuss VOXL’s software architecture in more detail, providing critical knowledge for any developer that would like to make custom applications for ROS.

If you would simply like to use ROS on VOXL, see the page on Custom ROS Applications.

Overview

Every MPA service follows the same pattern: subscribe to input pipes with the libmodal_pipe client API, process data, and publish results through the server API. The best way to learn it is:

  1. Read the libmodal_pipe page for the core concepts (servers, clients, sinks, the info file, and message types).
  2. Build and run the hello examples from the libmodal-pipe examples directory inside voxl-cross.
  3. Start your own service from the voxl-cross-template project, which ships the build scaffolding, packaging, and a working pipe client/server skeleton.