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Pymoveit2

Basic Python interface for MoveIt 2 built on top of ROS 2 actions and services

From AndrejOrsula·Updated June 15, 2026·View on GitHub·

Basic Python interface for MoveIt 2 built on top of ROS 2 actions and services. The project is written primarily in Python, distributed under the BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License license, first published in 2021. Key topics include: moveit2, python, robotics, ros2.

Latest release: 4.2.0
October 31, 2025View Changelog →

pymoveit2

Basic Python interface for MoveIt 2 built on top of ROS 2 actions and services.

Note: The official Python library for MoveIt 2 moveit_py is now available. Check the announcement here!

<div align="center" class="tg-wrap"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td width="25%"><img width="100%" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22929099/147369355-5f1b33ef-2e18-4042-9ea3-cd85b1a78fa0.gif" alt="Animation of ex_joint_goal.py"/></td> <td width="25%"><img width="100%" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22929099/147369356-b8ad2f4c-1996-47ac-9bfb-7fccd243fd56.gif" alt="Animation of ex_pose_goal.py"/></td> <td width="25%"><img width="100%" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22929099/147369354-640831e2-4661-4f3d-8fc2-3e97d7766e1a.gif" alt="Animation of ex_gripper.py"/></td> <td width="25%"><img width="100%" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/22929099/147374152-50128188-ab73-4d55-a537-b641325ce9c6.gif" alt="Animation of ex_servo.py"/></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="25%"><div align="center">Joint Goal</div></td> <td width="25%"><div align="center">Pose Goal</div></td> <td width="25%"><div align="center">Gripper Action</div></td> <td width="25%"><div align="center">MoveIt 2 Servo</div></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div>

Instructions

Dependencies

These are the primary dependencies required to use this project.

All additional dependencies are installed via rosdep during the building process below.

Building

Clone this repository, install dependencies and build with colcon.

bash
# Clone this repository into your favourite ROS 2 workspace git clone https://github.com/AndrejOrsula/pymoveit2.git # Install dependencies rosdep install -y -r -i --rosdistro ${ROS_DISTRO} --from-paths . # Build colcon build --merge-install --symlink-install --cmake-args "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release"

Sourcing

Before utilising this package, remember to source the ROS 2 workspace.

bash
source install/local_setup.bash

This enables importing of pymoveit2 module from external workspaces.

Examples

To demonstrate pymoveit2 usage, examples directory contains scripts that demonstrate the basic functionality. Additional examples can be found under gz_moveit2_examples repository.

Prior to running the examples, configure an environment for control of a robot with MoveIt 2. For instance, one of the following launch scripts from panda_gz_moveit2 repository can be used.

bash
# RViz (fake) ROS 2 control ros2 launch panda_moveit_config ex_fake_control.launch.py # Gazebo (simulated) ROS 2 control ros2 launch panda_moveit_config ex_gz_control.launch.py

After that, the individual scripts can be run.

bash
# Move to joint configuration ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_joint_goal.py --ros-args -p joint_positions:="[1.57, -1.57, 0.0, -1.57, 0.0, 1.57, 0.7854]" # Move to Cartesian pose (motion in either joint or Cartesian space) ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_pose_goal.py --ros-args -p position:="[0.25, 0.0, 1.0]" -p quat_xyzw:="[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0]" -p cartesian:=False # Repeatadly toggle the gripper (or use "open"/"close" actions) ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_gripper.py --ros-args -p action:="toggle" # Example of using MoveIt 2 Servo to move the end-effector in a circular motion ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_servo.py # Example of adding a collision object with primitive geometry to the planning scene of MoveIt 2 ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_collision_primitive.py --ros-args -p shape:="sphere" -p position:="[0.5, 0.0, 0.5]" -p dimensions:="[0.04]" # Example of adding a collision object with mesh geometry to the planning scene of MoveIt 2 ros2 run pymoveit2 ex_collision_mesh.py --ros-args -p action:="add" -p position:="[0.5, 0.0, 0.5]" -p quat_xyzw:="[0.0, 0.0, -0.707, 0.707]"

Directory Structure

The following directory structure is utilised for this package.

bash
. ├── examples/ # [dir] Examples demonstrating the use of `pymoveit2` ├── pymoveit2/ # [dir] ROS 2 launch scripts ├── robots/ # [dir] Presets for robots (data that can be extracted from URDF/SRDF) ├── gripper_command.py # Interface for Gripper that is controlled by GripperCommand ├── moveit2_gripper.py # Interface for MoveIt 2 Gripper that is controlled by JointTrajectoryController ├── moveit2_servo.py # Interface for MoveIt 2 Servo that enables real-time control in Cartesian Space └── moveit2.py # Interface for MoveIt 2 that enables planning and execution of trajectories ├── CMakeLists.txt # Colcon-enabled CMake recipe └── package.xml # ROS 2 package metadata

Contributors

Showing top 12 contributors by commit count.

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This article is auto-generated from AndrejOrsula/pymoveit2 via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/20/2026