4. The World File

The world file is used to describe the particular set of robots, sensors and objects to be simulated by Stage. Stage reads the world file on start-up and creates entities as indicated in the file. Stage may also write updated pose information into the world file when the user selects the File:Save menu option.

Note that the world file format has changed significantly from previous versions. The script tools/worldfileconv.tcl will attempt to convert your old (pre Stage-1.2) world files to the new format.

The worldfile is given as the last argument when invoking Stage: $ stage <worldfile>. Stage searches for the specified file in these directories, in this order:

1. the current directory
2. the directory that contains the current world file
3. the directories listed in the STAGEPATH environment variable

STAGEPATH works like the PATH variable of most shells. It is a list of directories to be searched, separated by colons. An example of how to set STAGEPATH in the BASH shell:

$ export STAGEPATH=$HOME/robotdev/worlds:$HOME/build/stage-1.3/worlds
$ echo $STAGEPATH
/home/vaughan/robotdev/worlds:/home/vaughan/build/stage-1.3/worlds

With the