Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2 now available (MSRDS4B24U)

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio

"There has been tremendous excitement with Microsoft Kinect within the robotics space signaling the potential opportunities that exist in transforming robots to low-cost mainstream consumer devices. RDS4 beta 2, with support from the Kinect sensor, aims to make it easier for developers to build applications, including those directed at personal robotics and consumer scenarios, both in hardware and in simulation.

• With RDS4 beta 2 simulation tools, you don’t need physical hardware to develop a Kinect-based robot!
• For hardware design, Microsoft has published the Robotics Developer Studio: Reference Platform Design specification for a standardized Kinect-based robot, to work with RDS4 Beta 2. Parallax, Inc has manufactured a hardware kit based on the reference platform design specification which, is available for pre-order now.
• RDS4 beta 2 also adds support for Microsoft .NET Framework 4, XNA Game Studio 4.0, and Visual Studio 2010.

To download Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2 (RDS4 Beta 2), click here.

Here are the changes in RDS4 beta 2 :

• Bug fixes
• DSS Log Analyzer Updated
• More documentation
• Improved Obstacle Avoidance with a UI
• Refactored the Reference Platform services to support a HAL

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Microsoft Robotics Blog - Announcing Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2

"A new release of Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2 is now available that is an update to the Beta released in September at Maker Faire in New York. This new Beta 2 version includes the following:

• Support for the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta 2
• DSS Log Analyzer
• Structured Logging
• Improved Obstacle Avoidance Service with a Visualization UI
• CCR for Silverlight 4.0, including new Extension Methods
• Additional documentation

This version of RDS requires Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010 (C# Express or higher). You can get a copy of RDS 4 Beta 2 free of charge from the Download page.

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Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2

Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2 is a freely available .NET-based programming environment for building robotics applications. It can be used by both professional and non-professional developers as well as hobbyists.

Version: 4.0.228.0
Date Published: 12/7/2011

Language: English

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2.exe, 289.0 MB

Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta 2 enables hobbyists and professional or non-professional developers to create robotics applications targeting a wide range of scenarios. This release is an update that has the functionality of the previous Standard Edition with the addition of support for the Kinect sensor and a defined Reference Platform.
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio can support a broad set of robotics platforms by either running directly on the platform (if it has an embedded PC running Windows) or controlling it from a Windows PC through a communication channel such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth®.

In addition to providing support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta provides a Visual Programming Language (VPL) which allows developers to create applications simply by dragging and dropping components onto a canvas and wiring them together.

The powerful Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) provides a high-fidelity simulation environment powered by NVIDIA™ PhysX™ engine for running game-quality 3D simulations with real-world physics interactions.

Tutorials that illustrate how to write applications ranging from simple "Hello Robot" to complex applications that simultaneously run on multiple robots.

Something fun to play with during the coming holidays...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta released (Think RDS gets Kinected)