CS::APEX is a framework based on synchronous dataflow and event-based message passing that aims to speed up prototyping of new robotic algorithms using visual programming aspects.

Calculations are represented by a nodes in a directed graph with data flowing on the directed edges.This execution graph is manipulated using a simple graphical user interface that allows spawning and deleting nodes, adding and removing edges and visualizating data in the stream. To speed up the prototyping process, other features like undo/redo mechanisms and profiling are implemented as well. Finally there exists an easy to use parameter system that generates UI controls for each block and allows parameter tuning and optimization.

The framework itself does not provide any predefined computation nodes and does not depend on specific message definitions or node types. These details are instead implemented in plug-in libraries that extend the functionality of the whole system.

The framework is targeted toward use in robotics and is fully compatible with ROS. Configurations generated using the GUI can directly be deployed on any ROS-based robotic system.

For more information, please refer to the Wiki at https://github.com/cogsys-tuebingen/csapex/wiki

the official website at http://www.ra.cs.uni-tuebingen.de/forschung/apex/

or contact the maintainers via email.

Currently we rely on the catkin build system developed in the ROS ecosystem. The core framework is independent of ROS, however.

Required for a build are:

• Linux system (tested with Ubuntu)
• C++11 compatible compiler (g++, clang++)
• Qt5 (on Ubuntu: qt5-default libqt5svg5-dev)
• libraries:
  • boost (program_options, filesystem, system, regex)
  • classloader
  • TinyXML (on Ubuntu: libtinyxml-dev)
  • yaml-cpp (on Ubuntu: libyaml-cpp-dev)

All contributions are welcome, please refer to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.