Welcome to Ignition!
If you're here and not quite sure what Ignition is all about, then you might want to give the Overview page a quick read.
When you're ready, follow the next few steps to get up and running with simulation using Ignition.
Each release of Ignition ships with a new installation tutorial. You can read the latest installation tutorial here. Please visit the main documentation pages for a list of all releases, along with links to their respective installation tutorials.
After installing Ignition in Step 1, you can launch Gazebo, a 3D robotics simulator, from a terminal using
ign gazebo shapes.sdf
This command will launch both the Gazebo server and Gazebo GUI with a world that contains three simple shapes.
Add the -v 4 command line argument to generate error, warning,
informational, and debugging messages on the console.
ign gazebo shapes.sdf -v 4
Gazebo can also be run headless, i.e. without the GUI, by using ign-gazebo-server instead of ign gazebo. For example,
ign-gazebo-server -f shapes.sdf -v 4
Similarly, the GUI can be run independently using ign-gazebo-gui. On
start, the GUI will attempt to connect to an ign-gazebo-server instance.
If a server is not available, then you will see just a blank screen until
a server instances is started.
SDF is used to specify the contents of simulation. Take a look at the available SDF tutorials to get started.
Modifying an existing SDF world is also a good way to get started. Ignition Gazebo ships with a number of example SDF worlds that you can freely copy and modify. These example SDF files are installed. Many of the SDF files also have instructions located at the top of the SDF file. The instructions typically contain information about how to run Gazebo with the SDF file in order to experience a particular feature.
There are a wide variety of simulation resources at your disposal on
https://app.ignitionrobotics.org/fuel.
If you find a model you'd like to use, then click on the <> icon in the
model description page, highlighted in the image below, to copy an SDF
snippet into your clipboard. This snippet can be pasted directly into your
custom SDF file.
This tutorial has covered the basics of getting started with Ignition. Starting with Citadel, there are more versioned tutorials covering the basics of the GUI, creating worlds and robots, and more.
Each Ignition library also has a set of tutorials and examples. Explore these resources, and don't forget to ask questions and find solutions at answers.gazebosim.org.