Recording Simulations

There are two ways in which you can record a simulation.

  1. Use glc-capture to directly record an OpenGl window. This only works on OpenGl windows - which for you may be rviz and gazebo but not Matlab. Learn how to install and use it from the tutorial.
  2. Use a screen capture utility. For a standard Ubuntu installation, I would recommend gtk-recordMyDesktop.
    • You can install it by running this:
      sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop
    • After it's installed, you can run it by clicking on:
      Applications --> Sound & Video --> gtk-recordMyDesktop
    • ex. mencoder -idx input.ogv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o output.avi


For recording rviz and gazebo windows, I would recommend method #1. (-ben)

UPDATE(3/21/11): gtk-recordMyDesktop does not record gazebo windows. It records all movement on the screen except movement within Gazebo. This might be true for rviz as well.

Editing Video

Now that you have a raw piece of footage of your beautiful simulation, you probably need to fix it up a bit. I know some of you will whip out your favorite ffmpeg command that you managed to memorize somehow but for the rest of us, I posted a description of some useful utilities below.
I believe there are the following three categories of video editing. The more advanced tools accomplish the tasks of the more basic ones but they usually have a steep learning curve.

Encode it, Cut it & Crop it
This is the most basic form of video editing...I put everything into this category that doesn't include any still photos and text.

  • Avidemux is the way to go. It supports Windows, Apple, Linux. There is a pretty gui and a commandline version.
    • On your Ubuntu machine, install it by simply running this:
      sudo apt-get install avidemux
  • If you are running Windows, then an old favorite of mine is VirtualDub. It can do a lot...


Simple Title slides, Inserting Photos, Picture-In-Picture
Basic stuff. Good enough for making most conference quality submissions.

  • iMovie on a Mac
  • Windows Movie Maker on a PC


Everything else
How to do everything else...

  • OpenShot Video - Surprisingly robust for an open-source linux video editor...
  • Final Cut Pro - Steep learning curve. I suggest you have an 8-year old on youtube explain to you how to use it...



In the GRASP Lab, when you walk in on the right is a very fast Mac Pro that is available to you for editing your videos. It has iMovie and Final Cut Express. You are allowed to use it as long as you adhere to the most important rule of the outdoors: Pack it in, pack it out. We are not interested in seeing your remnant files on the desktop. Use a flash drive to remove every file that you create.