Gliders’ in-browser basic soccer monitor, a web based player for RoboCup log files
rcg2html converter
version: 2.0
Authors: Edward Moore, Oliver Obst
Date: 05/05/13
License: GPL3
- OVERVIEW ===================
This is a set of scripts to help display rcg logfiles from RoboCup soccer simulation league in a web browser. The idea of this HTML5 logplayer is to avoid the use of flash, since compiling the original flash converter by Thilo Girmann requires a proprietary library that is no longer available.
If you find these scripts useful, e.g., for showing matches on your web page, please do cite our team description report in your papers and/or team descriptions. This report is an extended version of the original Gliders2012 team report, the reference is as follows:
Gliders2012: Development and Competition Results Edward Moore, Oliver Obst, Mikhail Prokopenko, Peter Wang, Jason Held arXiv:1211.3882 http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.3882
It's perfectly OK to modify and re-distribute modified versions of this tool. If you do, please keep the message above intact. See also the file LICENSE for details.
If you find bugs or have suggestions for improvements, or would like to contribute fixes or improvements, please send us an email (oliverobst@gmail.com). We will try to incorporate your patches and suggestions in a next version.
- SETUP ===================
There is a number of steps to follow initial installation of these scripts. Files can be installed on a web server by simply copying (run in a web browser).
The tool to convert log files into the *.replay files required by our log player needs to be compiled first in order to be run.
2.1 Compiling the Converter
In the "converter" subdirectory, there is a very simple Makefile that should do the job. You will need the rcgbase installed that comes with the server. Just do:
make
2.2 Converting rcg[.gz] files
To convert .rcg(.gz) files into a .replay (converted game replay) is now very simple:
The rcg2replay program will convert .rcg or gzipped rcg files into text, e.g.,
rcg2replay 201203051705-TeamEI_8-vs-HELIOS_base_1.rcg.gz > 201203051705-TeamEI_8-vs-HELIOS_base_1.replay
Repeat for all games you want to show on your web page.
2.3 Installing the scripts on the web server
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Copy all generated .replay files into some directory on your web server (for minimal changes, retain the directory structure coming with these scripts).
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play.php is the main file that starts up the logplayer when invoked using a browser. Copy this file into the desired directory.
This file should be modified to include all the .replay files. If you copied them into a different subdirectory, make sure to include the correct path. See also online examples at http://www.oliverobst.eu/research/robotics-gliders2012-simulation-league-robocup-team/robocup-2012
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Copy the scripts directory and the *.css files. play.php includes 3 javascript files, and 2 CSS style sheets. All 3 javascript files are expected in a subdirectory "scripts". This subdirectory should be in the same directory as play.php. The 2 CSS files are expected to be in the same directory as play.php.
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Copy the images directory. The style sheet jquery-ui.css expects some icons and graphics in the "images" subdirectory (which again should be in the same directory as play.php).
- PLAYING BACK ===================
The example web page (play.php) gives you a drop-down menu to select available games. To play back a game, it needs to be transferred to the client side. Currently, the typical size of a replay file is 4-5MB. This transfer can take time and may make the browser seem like it has frozen. A notice to say that the file is being loaded would probably be nice - feel free to add this or any other feature to the php script.
- DEVELOPMENT ===================
Further development of the rcg2html tool may change the format of replay files to reduce size.