How to run Gazebo on Google Compute Engine with GPU?

1
votes

I am attempting to run Gazebo in an Ubuntu 16.04 Google Compute Engine instance with 1 NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPU. The GPU is configured using the following drivers, which are necessary because I am also using Tensorflow in my application.

A solution to a similar problem is given here, however I have not had any success implementing JLiviero or Jose Luis Rivero's answers. After setting up Xvfb per JLiviero's solution, running Gazebo in verbose mode fails and yields the following output: 

jonathon@full-algo-1-gpu:~/catkin_ws$ gazebo --verbose
Gazebo multi-robot simulator, version 7.14.0
Copyright (C) 2012 Open Source Robotics Foundation.
Released under the Apache 2 License.
http://gazebosim.org

[Msg] Waiting for master.
[Msg] Waiting for master.
[Msg] Connected to gazebo master @ http://127.0.0.1:11345
[Msg] Connected to gazebo master @ http://127.0.0.1:11345
[Msg] Publicized address: 10.138.0.8
[Msg] Publicized address: 10.138.0.8
[Err] [RenderEngine.cc:734] Can't open display: 
[Wrn] [RenderEngine.cc:97] Unable to create X window. Rendering will be disabled
[Wrn] [RenderEngine.cc:301] Cannot initialize render engine since render path type is NONE. Ignore this warning ifrendering has been turned off on purpose.
[Err] [RenderEngine.cc:734] Can't open display: 
[Wrn] [RenderEngine.cc:97] Unable to create X window. Rendering will be disabled
[Wrn] [RenderEngine.cc:301] Cannot initialize render engine since render path type is NONE. Ignore this warning ifrendering has been turned off on purpose.
[Wrn] [GuiIface.cc:99] gazeb: cannot connect to X server

Software I am using in my instance:

  • Gazebo version: 7.14
  • Python version: 2.7.12
  • Tensorflow version: 1.10.1

How do I get Gazebo to run without crashing?

1
openglgoogle-compute-enginerosxserverglx
Do you run roscore? – Benyamin Jafari
also put the commands instead of images, Reference – Benyamin Jafari
@BenyaminJafari I didn't use roscore in the above example, but I don't think it is needed to run standalone Gazebo. I will remove ROS from my listed software, since it is not relevant. – Jon S
It seems like you need to use the xvfb. I have found a similar error report here. Additionally, I have also seen some other discussion threads1,2,3 with error reports resembling your issue. I hope this helps – Digil

1 Answers

0
votes

It looks like Gazebo is trying to make use of X-server. I suspect that installing some display environment packages might help.

try this :

sudo apt-get install gnome-core