Detailed Description

Absolute Pose Publisher for Gazebo Harmonic

A minimal world-level Gazebo system plugin that publishes world-frame poses for all models and, optionally, all links and joints.

Each gz.msgs.Pose entry contains:

id: Gazebo entity ID
name: Gazebo scoped name, such as robot::arm_link
position and orientation: pose resolved in the world frame

The world name is deliberately excluded from the scoped name.

Requirements

Gazebo Harmonic development packages, including:

gz-sim8
gz-msgs10
gz-transport13
CMake and a C++17 compiler

On Ubuntu with Gazebo Harmonic installed from packages, the required development packages are normally pulled in by the Gazebo installation.

Build

cd absolute_pose_publisher
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"

Run the example

export GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH="$PWD/build:${GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH:-}"

gz sim -r example_world.sdf

In another terminal, preserving the same Gazebo environment:

gz topic -e -t /world/my_world/absolute_pose/info

Add it to an existing world

Place this inside the world's <world> element:

<plugin
    filename="AbsolutePosePublisher"
    name="absolute_pose_publisher::AbsolutePosePublisher">
  <topic>/world/my_world/absolute_pose/info</topic>
  <update_rate>50</update_rate>
  <publish_links>true</publish_links>
  <publish_joints>true</publish_joints>
</plugin>

Then ensure the build directory is discoverable:

export GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH="/absolute/path/to/absolute_pose_publisher/build:${GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH:-}"

Configuration

topic: output topic; default is /absolute_pose/info
update_rate: publication rate in Hz; a non-positive value publishes every unpaused simulation iteration
publish_links: whether link poses are included; default is true
publish_joints: whether joint poses are included; default is false

Models are always published.