LinkForge 1.2.0: Centralized ros2_control Dashboard & Inertial Precision

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Hi Everyone,

Following the initial announcement of LinkForge, I’m appreciative of the feedback. Today I’m releasing v1.2.0, focused on internal stability and better diagnostic visuals.

Key Technical Changes:

  • Centralized ros2_control Dashboard: We’ve consolidated all hardware interfaces and transmissions into a single dashboard. This makes managing complex actuators much faster and prevents property-hunting across panels.

  • Inertial Origins & CoM Editing: We’ve exposed the inertial origin in the UI and added a GPU-based overlay showing a persistent Center of Mass sphere. This allows for manual fine-tuning and immediate visual verification of your physics model directly in the 3D viewport.

  • Hexagonal Architecture: The core logic is now decoupled from the Blender API, making the codebase more testable (now with near-full core coverage) and future-proof.

ros2_control
ros2_control920×1236 138 KB

We also fixed several bugs related to Xacro generation and mesh cloning for export robustness. Getting the physics right in the editor is the best way to prevent “exploding robots” in simulation.

:hammer_and_wrench: Download (Blender Extensions): LinkForge — Blender Extensions
:open_book: Documentation: https://linkforge.readthedocs.io/
:laptop: Source Code: GitHub - arounamounchili/linkforge: Build simulation-ready robots in Blender. Professional URDF/XACRO exporter with validation, sensors, and ros2_control support.

Feedback on the new dashboard workflow is very welcome!

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