Visualize data in LCM
System blocks communicate with opening ports. Data flow from one port to another through LCM pipelines. We could visualize the data.
Open the visualizer
Ensure that you have installed the drake visualizer with
cd drake
bazel build //tools:drake_visualizer
bazel-bin/tools/drake_visualizer
Open LCM data inspector
In another terminal, we open the LCM data inspector by
cd drake
bazel-bin/lcmtypes/drake-lcm-spy
Execute the robot
To visualize data, we need data. Controlling a robot to move is a good way to get data flowing. We start a KUKA arm simulation in another terminal:
bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/kuka_simulation

Then in another terminal we open up a "planner and runner".
bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/kuka_plan_runner
Finally we need to send command to the planner, it will run the KUKA arm.
bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/move_iiwa_ee -x 0.8 -y 0.3 -z 0.25 -yaw 1.57
You should see the robot arm moving with the commanding data in the LCM inspector change simultaneously. For more detailed data stream, you can double click on each LCM channel.

Links
The KUKA Manipulation example is here.
Last updated
Was this helpful?