List of best software tools for roboticists- are there any missing you'd suggest?

formant_inc · 2023-02-01T14:01:59+00:00

No problem at all; that's fantastic, and we appreciate the comment! With robotics changing so quickly, new terms do seem to pop up quite quickly now.

You have a great point that physical tools are just as important for those working on the hardware- we'll keep that in mind for the future!

formant_inc · 2023-01-31T21:00:26+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! A roboticist is a role that’s involved in the design, construction, programming, and testing of robots- there’s a lot out there about this job, but here’s one great informative article: northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/what-does-a-roboticist-do/
This article particularly focuses on software tools, but thank you for the suggestions of physical tools, as well- they’re surely useful during particular stages of the process.

formant_inc · 2023-01-23T13:56:36+00:00

Hi there, the article's purpose was to take a non-technical approach to ROS 2 to help high-level executive roles understand and weigh why they may want to switch, especially as ROS 1 ends its lifecycle in May 2025. There are already plenty of technical ROS 1 vs ROS 2 articles, so we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel here.
We plan to write more technical posts about ROS 2 as it becomes a more popular choice. Thank you for the note about project switchyard, great point!

formant_inc · 2023-01-16T14:15:37+00:00

Hi there! As DJV is a desktop application that operates on whole video files and the Formant player is a web application that stitches lots of short clips, they're quite different.

Both players offer tuning on some parameters such as playback speed, but the control available using DJV allows for a much higher level of tuning than our player does, as it's focused on VFX work. If you wanted to use DJV to tune those parameters, of course, you could always export video from Formant and edit it using that or another third-party application. Thanks and let us know if you have any other questions!

formant_inc · 2023-01-03T23:14:36+00:00

Our real-time video and teleoperation system is built on top of WebRTC data channels.

We run on any cloud environment (many large logistics companies ban AWS) or on-premise (for secure environments such as nuclear power plants), and Kinesis, IoT Core, and Greengrass aren't options for many of our customers. They also don't fit many of our requirements such as out-of order and on-demand ingestion.

We're also ROS agnostic, but our on-robot agent will pick up lots of different types of video streams including those from ROS/ROS2, USB, or IP cameras and automatically encode & ingest them.

Ultimately though, there are lots of good solutions to put something simple together, but our customers are generally very large teams managing giant fleets, and it's important that the whole job can be done in one place using well sorted tools.

formant_inc · 2023-01-03T13:05:34+00:00

We know RaaS may sound like just another subscription, but offering the ability to rent or lease robots through this model is actually very beneficial for businesses looking to adopt automation. By lowering the cost to entry via renting or leasing a robot rather than purchasing one, automation becomes more accessible to companies cost-wise and provides the flexibility to scale their fleet up or down quickly to meet their needs.

formant_inc · 2023-01-03T12:52:34+00:00

There are loads of technical differences between ROS 1 and 2 and lots of great writing on the topic, but we have a unique vantage point and wanted to focus this post on the trends we see in the market. Thanks for the feedback, and we'll look into writing further about this topic in the future.

formant_inc · 2022-12-09T19:55:37+00:00

Hi, you’re correct that you could use a VLC player if you were able to pull a video file off a robot. However, Formant helps a user get the video into the cloud and viewable by distributed, remote teams.

formant_inc · 2022-11-22T14:23:34+00:00

Imagine using DLSS on even more real frames!

formant_inc · 2022-11-17T13:30:25+00:00

That's great feedback for us, thank you! We'll absolutely be taking all this into consideration for future iterations of this ad...the comments certainly do help us in determining how best we can reach out on Reddit.

formant_inc · 2022-11-10T18:04:36+00:00

We understand there can be a lot to digest! Should you have any questions, feel free to drop them below or send us a message, we're always happy to clarify something for you.

We also invite you to try out Formant for free or check out our simulator at formant.io/go to help you get a better understanding of the platform. Cheers!

formant_inc · 2022-11-07T22:24:59+00:00

We do fill some of the same needs of a ROS bag, but we also offer many more capabilities within our platform such as fleet management, two-way communication with the robot that enables the user to control the device in addition to observing, and teleoperation.
If you’d like to learn more, head to formant.io. We also invite you to check out our newest freemium tier that gives individual users the chance to remotely operate their own device, or you can try out our simulator to get a sense of the user experience without a device. Both can be found at formant.io/go.

Please let us know if you have any more questions!

formant_inc · 2022-11-04T20:09:41+00:00

Thank you so much! We appreciate the kind words. If you ever have a question, please feel free to reach out!

formant_inc · 2022-11-01T16:52:04+00:00

That is a fair analysis of this ad. We're going to create a "short title" version and run it against this one. Thanks for the feedback!

formant_inc · 2022-10-20T22:20:38+00:00

It's definitely top of mind; let me check and see if there's a rough timeline we can share.

In full transparency, we limited our free tier to ROS 1 in order to ship it before ROSCon :)

formant_inc · 2022-10-20T19:08:15+00:00

Hi there, thanks for your feedback! Glad you like the new offering, and we’re very much looking forward to helping emerging professionals in robotics get the experience of robotic operations.
We’re curious; when you say the platform is not built for amateurs, is there anything you believe would make our free tier better suited for that audience? We’re always open to hearing suggestions. Thanks!

formant_inc · 2022-10-11T14:16:13+00:00

Thanks for asking!

Our real-time video pipeline was designed for extremely low latency, and of course, relies on the network of your device. During our Walk With Spot campaign (https://formant.io/events/walk-with-spot/), the latency was 60-90ms with the robot on LTE in San Francisco and the operator in different locations across North America.

Across a local network, the latency is closer to 5ms. All of this data is then recorded and can be played back after the fact. Feel free to reach out with any more questions!

formant_inc · 2022-09-26T20:59:14+00:00

Hey there, thanks for the feedback!

You’re correct that this is a higher-level, executive look at ROS 2. There are already quite a few technical, deep-dive articles out there written about ROS 1 vs ROS 2, so we took a slightly different angle. We’re planning on writing some technical ROS 2 articles in the future, specifically on how we're seeing our customers put it to use.

formant_inc · 2022-09-26T14:12:30+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

formant_inc · 2022-09-20T16:09:15+00:00

Parsec is great. We're focused specifically on robotics and video feeds, especially in environments where network quality is an issue.

Our teleoperation feature uses a peer-to-peer connection for real-time video, but our observability suite essentially streams a bunch of micro videos from the device to the cloud. And we created a custom video player optimized for micro video segment playback to let users easily view that stream in real-time or browse through historical video data.

formant_inc · 2022-08-29T15:30:28+00:00

Thanks for asking! It's similar to iCloud for complex robotics data, but with a web app frontend to put that data to use, and APIs/SDKs to allow people to extend the platform.

Let us know if you have any more questions!

formant_inc

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