Project Description

The Professional MRDS project is the most up-to-date repository for the source code examples from the book "Professional Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio". These C# and VPL samples can be used by novices through to advanced programmers to learn about robotics using RDS.

Now updated to RDS 4 (RDS 2008 R3 version still available)
RDS 4 version requires Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010
This is the final release of ProMRDS. It will no longer be updated.

Contents of the Project
This project contains a large number of samples for RDS that cover the following areas:
  1. MRDS Architecture - Decentralized Software Services (DSS), Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR), using Windows Forms and Web Forms, live video with a Web Camera
  2. Visual Simulation Environment - How to use the Simulator and develop new simulation entities
  3. Visual Programming Language (VPL) - Programming using Dataflow Diagrams
  4. Using Real Robotics Hardware - Controlling wheeled robots and a robotic arm, as well as writing new hardware services
A detailed list of contents is included in the ZIP file.

Installation Instructions
There is a separate page for the Installation Instructions. Please be sure to follow the instructions carefully to avoid having to ask questions about common problems. Also read the FAQ before posting to the Discussions page.

IMPORTANT NOTES: When you unzip, you must place the files under your RDS installation folder. Also, you must run setup.cmd before you try to run buildall.cmd. As of the RDS 4 Beta only Visual Studio 2010 projects are supported and these projects use .NET 4.0.

Textbook
Book Icon
The original web site for the book samples is http://www.promrds.com. (This is referred to here as the "ProMRDS" web site. The page you are looking now at is the "CodePlex" site.) This textbook was written by Kyle Johns and Trevor Taylor.

After 4 years, it is time to call it quits. Kyle and I no longer work for the Microsoft Robotics Group and
many of the robots in the book are no longer available. The cost of maintaining the code, both in time
and dollars to buy hardware, are not justified any more. And in case anyone is interested, the book never
paid off the initial author advance so it was a loss-maker for John Wiley and they are not interested in
a Second Edition.

We had fun working with robots. We hope that the people who used the book and the samples found it
fun as well.

Disclaimer

This is an independent software project. It is not affiliated with or supported by Microsoft. No connection with Microsoft is implied. The name Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (abbreviated here to RDS) is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

The RDS services in this project are intended for educational purposes only and should not be used for commercial packages because their reliability is not guaranteed.

Acknowledgement

The code in this project was originally published by Wrox (a Wiley Publishing company). The code is released here with the permission of Wiley.

Release History