What robots does RDS support?
RDS is a platform for writing robot services and it does not directly "support" many robots. The primary robot that services are available for is the Reference Platform. Other samples are provided for the LEGO NXT and iRobot Create, but in
these cases the services do not run on the robots themselves - you need to remotely control the robots over Bluetooth using a PC running Windows.
Can I use RDS to communicate with my HW device?
You can create your own DSS services to commuicate with any kind of device as long as you are willing and able to write the communication code in C# using .NET or other libraries. There are tutorials on how to create services in the RDS
documentation.
RDS does provide a generic "SerialCom" service for communicating with devices that use a Serial Communications channel (that can be via a serial port or other ports like USB that can act as a serial port). That service can be used as-is for serial devices,
or as an example for how to create communicate services in general. It is located in the "Microsoft Robotics Dev Studio 4\samples\Platforms\ReferencePlatform" directory. It was created in support of the Reference Platform but is not limited to
use for that.
How do I upgrade an older project to VS2010?
If you upgrade a project to VS2010 (which happens automatically when you open it) then it will be modified to target the .NET 4.0 Framework. This does not work with RDS. To resolve this problem, please look in the project properties and change the Target Framework
back to 3.5. If you are using VS2010 Express Edition, there is no User Interface to make this change so you will have to edit the .csproj file in Notepad and find the line:
<TargetFrameworkVersion>v4.0</TargetFrameworkVersion>
and change 4.0 to 3.5. Save the file, and then open the project again in Visual Studio and rebuild.
Why can't I connect to a remote DSS node using RDS4?
In the final release of RDS4 we increased security by disabling network communication between nodes by default. You must enable this communication manually by changing a setting in the DSS Application Configuration File. This is explained in
detail in the DSS Node Security Model page here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb483066.aspx
Why does my VPL program not work after I make changes to a configuration manifest?
If you change a manifest that is used in a VPL program as the configuration for an activity, you may need to remove and re-apply the configuration manifest in the VPL editor for the changes to be correct applied to the program.
How do I read and use Kinect Skeleton Data in my VPL program?
There are a couple good posts with samples
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/roboticsvisualprogramminglanguage/thread/746e0cb5-530a-4e43-a2e4-3dba7deecad5/#e9c66fcd-1317-4dd0-9f2a-00d94df20450
and
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/roboticsvisualprogramminglanguage/thread/e1112f76-e0dd-4098-a226-dd523141b4d4
How do I do create and interact with more sophisticated physical models in Sim?
The best source for information on the simulation environment is still the book "Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio"
http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Microsoft-Robotics-Developer-Programmer/dp/0470141077/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332967948&sr=1-1
The Simulation environment in RDS is build on the PhysX system from nVidia. When it comes to more complex models and simulation interactions you often need to use the PhysicsEntity object that is exposed in PhysicsEngine.dll. More information about advanced
simulation can be gotten from the PhysX site:
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/physx.
I also recommend going through all the Simulation tutorials in the documentation.
Why don’t I have the Visual Studio templates for Creating a new DSS Service?
The installer sometimes fails to install the template. This can either be because VS was installed after RDS, or when your Visual Studio template settings are pointing to the wrong folder. To fix this, you can download and install
the template manually from here:
http://mrdssamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/85095
Can I use RDS with the latest Kinect SDK?
Unfortunately the pre-built Kinect service references K4W 1.0. In order to use the latest SDK, you need to rebuild the services after having installed the SDK (either by running "Build All Samples.cmd" or individually [samples\Sensor\Kinect\... for example]).
You will then need to change your manifests to use the "(User)" versions of these - "(User) Kinect" for example.
