RoboFaceMaker

System for designing, animating, and displaying SVG-based robot faces driven by ROS2 commands.

Repository structure

RoboFaceMaker/
├── robo_face_maker_ui/   # Browser-based face animation editor
├── presets/              # Face JSON files (exported from the editor)
└── ros2_roboface/        # Node.js display node (rosbridge WebSocket client)

Workflow

1. Design faces in robo_face_maker_ui/ — open index.html in a browser, animate, then export via File → Save as JSON.

2. Store presets in presets/ — each file is named {face-id}.json.

3. Run the display node from ros2_roboface/:

   npm install
   npm start

   Open http://localhost:3000 on the robot display. Configure the rosbridge URL via the ?rosbridge= query param if the ROS2 bridge is on a different host.

4. Control via ROS2 topics published by your robot's behaviour layer:

   Topic	Type	Effect
   /roboface/load_face	std_msgs/String	Load a face by ID
   /roboface/play	std_msgs/String	"once" or "loop"
   /roboface/pause	std_msgs/Empty	Pause playback
   /roboface/stop	std_msgs/Empty	Stop and reset to frame 0

Requirements

• Browser (face editor — no server needed)
• Node.js 18+ (display node)
• ROS2 with rosbridge_suite running on port 9090

Authors