GrxUI

OmniORB name server does not start

When trying to start GrxUI on Windows environments having OmniORB version 4.1.2 installed, a messege saying "3DVIEW : failed to bind to localhost NameService" can be displayed as shown in figure below and fails starting GrxUI.


Fig.1: failed to bind to localhost NameService

This type of error occurs when the 'Computer name' of your computer could not be identified correctly.

If your computer name is longer than 14 characters or if it contains characters other than [A-Z,a-z,0-9,'_'] , that may cause problems.You can check your computer name and re-define, according to the following procedure.

Open "System Properties" dialog box using one of the following method.

* Right-click "My Computer" icon on the Desktop, and click "Properties" in the menu.
* Press "Start" button, right-click "My Computer" and click "Properties" in the menu.
* Press "Start" button, select "Run". Enter "sysdm.cpl" in the text box and hit "OK".
* Press "Start" button, browse in to "Control Panel" > "System".

Select "Computer name" tab in the opened dialog box and check whether your computer name is in right order. Click "change" button if you want to re-define it.

GrxUI stuck at start-up

This problem can be resolved by clearing the contents of omniNames(omniORBs' name server).

Once the CORBA objects are created, omniNames name server would try to keep them stored as a log file. To recover from this issue, just delete the log file and re-start omniNames.

For instance, let's say we have installed omniORB package on Ubuntu platform. Once omniNames is started the temporary files named "omninames-(HostName).bak" and "omninames-(HostName).log" will be created at /var/log . Delete these temporary files and move into /etc/init.d . Restart the name server as follows; 

$ ./omniorb4-nameserver restart

Since the name server is cleared, OpenHRP would be started as normally.

3D view of GrxUI is abnormal / Program stucks

When "Direct Rendering" feature is activated for OpenGL displays on X-Windows systems, this kind of troublesome situations could take place, due to the 3D-rendering unsupported graphics drivers. Deactivating "Direct Rendeing" can cause to slower the 3D graphics, but it would let GrxUI to execute as normal.

Concretly speaking, we have noticed this type situation, when running Ubuntu 7.10 on a notebook PC that have Intel GM965 chipset onboard. In that case, we deactivated direct- rendering by appending following line under [Section "Device"] in /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. 

Option "DRI" "false"

Then restarted X-windows system. Direct rendering was disabled and the program execution got back to normal.

Probably, this may be a bug of OpenGL driver or Java3D.

3D view of GrxUI is abnormal (On Windows)

For some video adaptors, when the GrxUI 3DView frame is kept smaller, 3D model start flickering and vertex-buffer collapses.The cause is not yet confirmed, but according to the phenomenon we saw on a note-book pc, it seems like a malfunction of video adaptor.

However, enlarging the frame size of GrxUI tab window, may resolve the matter.

Displays 3D-device error at GrxUI start-up (For Windows)

For some environments, it gives following error messege when starting up GrxUI, and the program exits.

Fail to create referance rasterizer 3D Device - D3DERR_NOTAVAILABLE

According to article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/191660/en, this issue may occur due to any of the following reasons:

  1. Your computer does not meet the minimum 3D hardware requirements to run GrxUI
  2. Your video adapter does not have sufficient video memory to run GrxUI
    Resolution:
      Reason(1) and reason(2), mean that the hardware equipments in your pc such as CPU, RAM, video-RAM etc, does not satisfy the minimum requirements to run 3D graphics. Therefore you have to check which equipments does not meet the requirements and replace those with better ones.

      Here we provide the hardware spesifications of a computer that can run OpenHRP at optimum condition. Refer these specifications and compare with yours.

      • CPU: PentiumIV 2Ghz
      • RAM: 1024MB
      • Video adaptor: NVIDIA
      • Video RAM: 128MB
      • HDD space available: 5GB
  3. "DirectDraw Acceleration" is disabled
    Resolution:
    • Click "Start" > "Run". Enter "dxdiag" in the textbox and press OK. "DirectX Diagnostic tool" window will be opened.
    • Select "Display" tab. Check out the status of "DirectDraw Acceleration" and "Direct3D Acceleration". If the status of any of those are "Disabled", press "Enable" button along with.
    • In case of "Enable" button is not active(state that cannot press), go through the resolutions of section (4) and (5).
  4. Video adaptor drivers are out-of-date
    Resolution:
      If you use older version of video driver, the above accelerator features would not be supported. In this case, you have to search for the latest compatible (better if stable) driver version for your video adaptor and install it. At most cases, latest drivers can be found at makers' homepage. It will be easier for you to find download location, by searching internet for driver name that displays under "Device Manager" > "Display Adaptor" section.
  5. DirectX version you are using is not up-to-date or damaged
    Resolution:
      Go to "DirectX Diagnostic tool" > "Display" tab, as explained in section (3). Run "DireactDraw Test" and "Direct3D Test". You will see some graphical displays during the tests. If it does not displayed correctly, the tests will fail and we can say that your DirectX-run-time-engine is performing abnormal.In that case, download the latest DirectX installer version from http://www.microsoft.com/japan/windows/directx/default.mspx and re-install DirectX.
  6. One or more programs that are running in the background are interfering with the game
    Resolution:
      While running GrxUI, if you keep running any 3D graphics application softwares at back-ground that uses DirectDraw and Direct3D features, it can be difficult to handle and cause to slower the execution of all running applications. (However, handling applications depends on the performance of your pc). In this case, please shut down the unusing applications and try again.

X-Windows system freezes during GrxUI execution (For Linux)

This issue can be occur, when the X-Window display-driver has not been configured properly for OpenGL. In this case, you have to re-install an OpenGL supportive display-driver.

For video adaptors such as nvidia or ATI, there are display-drivers provided by manufacture, that aimed for better support on OpenGL. Installing these specific display-driver would resolve the problem. (For more details, refer here)

Can not open the model files created with OpenHRP previous versions

We have made few changes on the model file format. Locate following line, under 'Proto Joint' definition:

exposedField SFFloat jointId -1

Edit the above line as follows:

exposedField SFInt32 jointId -1

Install

Can not install JMF (Java Media Framework)

On Linux environments, following command can cause to fail the JMF installation.

$ sh jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin

The reason is, a problem related with "tail" command used in "jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin" file. According to the latest version of tail command, it is necessary to explicitly specify the '-n' option.

In concrete terms, locate 267th line in "jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin" file

tail +309 $0 > $outname

Edit the above line as follows:

tail -n +309 $0 > $outname

Note:
When editing binary files, please be careful to use an editor that does not destruct binary region. We experienced that, "Emacs" and "vi" editors normally edited the file, while "nano" editor destruct the binary region. Once you destruct the binary region, you will not be able to install JMF properly and cause to fail the OpenHRP compilation.

With OpenHRP version 3.0.2, we issue a script file to get fix this error, by edting "jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin" file prior to the installation. 

$ sh {OpenHRP Home}/util/jmf_install.sh {JMF Installer's path}/jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin

Apply the full-path of JMF installer, as a parameter to the above command. It will fix the bin file automatically as needed. The parameters would not be essential, if the JMF installer is in the same directory with "jmf_install.sh" script file.