Robot URDF Studio
No install needed. Click the link, design your robot, and download the ROS 2 package.
A single-page web app that generates URDF models and ready-to-build ROS 2 packages for:
- 2-wheel drive (differential drive + caster)
- 4-wheel drive (skid-steer)
- 6-DOF robotic arm (optional parallel gripper)
- Humanoid (23 DOF biped; free-standing, it walks with the keyboard)
- Semi-humanoid (humanoid upper body on a wheeled base)
Enter the robot's dimensions and masses, check it in the live 3D preview (with joint sliders and geometry checks), pick RViz, Gazebo, or both, and download a zip containing:
urdf/<robot>.urdf with inertia computed from geometry, plus Gazebo plugins (diff drive, joint position controllers, lidar/camera/IMU) when Gazebo is selectedlaunch/display.launch.py (robot_state_publisher + joint_state_publisher_gui + RViz)launch/gazebo.launch.py (Gazebo + spawn + ros_gz_bridge, optional RViz)worlds/empty.sdf, rviz/*.rviz, package.xml, CMakeLists.txt, README.mdrobot_spec.json to re-import and edit later
For the 6-DOF arm, humanoid and semi-humanoid it can also generate a <robot>_moveit_config package:
- SRDF with planning groups (arm/gripper, left/right arm, head, torso, legs), named poses and a collision matrix
- KDL kinematics, joint limits, ros2_control with mock hardware (RViz demo) or
gz_ros2_control (Gazebo)
- One
JointTrajectoryController per group, wired to MoveIt
demo.launch.py (MoveIt + RViz, no physics) and gazebo.launch.py (Gazebo + MoveIt + RViz)
Gazebo worlds included in every package (pick the default in the app, switch at launch with world:=<name>):
| World | Contents |
|---|
empty | Flat ground |
factory | Conveyor lines, CNC machines, work tables, bin racks, marked robot cell |
warehouse | Four rows of pallet racks with boxes, 2 m aisles, floor lanes, loading dock |
office | Desk clusters with monitors and chairs, meeting room, cabinets, sofa, plants |
Worlds are built from simple shapes, so they load offline with no model downloads.
Your own world (.sdf)
Pick Your own world in Step 3 (or drag a file onto the world picker) and upload:
- a Gazebo world file (
.sdf or .world), or
- a
.zip that holds the world file together with the models and meshes it uses (keep the folder layout the world expects).
The app then:
- shows the world's boxes, cylinders and spheres in the 3D preview (meshes and
<include> models still load in Gazebo, they just are not drawn in the browser);
- renames the world to
default inside the file, so the launch files and bridges find it;
- adds any Gazebo systems the robot needs that the file is missing (physics, user commands, scene broadcaster, sensors, IMU), using the right names for Harmonic or Fortress;
- packs the zip's other files into
worlds/custom_assets/, rewrites relative mesh paths to point there, and adds that folder (and custom_assets/models) to the Gazebo resource path so model:// URIs resolve;
- lets you set where the robot starts (x, y and heading), which become the defaults of the launch file's
x, y and yaw arguments.
Launch it with world:=custom. Files with absolute paths (file:///home/...) only work on the computer they point to.
Run locally (optional)
index.html is a single file: open it in a browser, or serve the folder with any static server, for example
python3 -m http.server 8000
It loads three.js and JSZip from public CDNs, so it needs internet access.
Build a generated package
mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src && cd ~/ros2_ws/src
unzip ~/Downloads/<package>.zip
cd ~/ros2_ws && colcon build --packages-select <package>
source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch <package> display.launch.py # RViz
ros2 launch <package> gazebo.launch.py # Gazebo
Move the robot with the keyboard (in a new terminal, while Gazebo runs):
- 2-wheel / 4-wheel drive:
ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard
- 6-DOF arm, humanoid, semi-humanoid:
ros2 run <package> joint_teleop. Keys: w/s pick a joint, a/d move it, q/e change the step size, z zeroes the joint, h sends every joint home. The semi-humanoid also drives its base with i , j l and stops with k. It works with the plain Gazebo package (joint position controllers) and with the MoveIt package (trajectory controllers).
- Humanoid walking: untick Pin pelvis and leave MoveIt off, then in
joint_teleop press i / , to walk forward / back, j / l to turn, u / o to walk and turn, k to stop, h to stop and straighten the legs. It walks slowly (about 2 cm/s) with a weight-shifting gait and uses /joint_states and /imu to set each foot down flat. Tested in MuJoCo; keep Gazebo's physics step at 1 ms.
Colors
The colors you pick in the app are written into every <visual> of the URDF, so RViz and Gazebo show the same colors as the preview. If a part shows up plain white in RViz, RViz has no transform for that link yet: check that the joint states are being published (the joint slider window for RViz, or the Gazebo bridge for simulation).
