I am attempting to send a single topic from an external program on a windows PC to Gazebo standalone on an ubuntu PC.

My First Step was to be able to communicate Linux to Linux. This was straight forward. We can send commands from Linux PC to Linux PC 1. Install gazebo on Both PC's 2. On PC 1 Open terminal in folder that contains the velodyne example export GAZEBOPLUGINPATH=$PWD:$GAZEBOPLUGINPATH ( Gazebo plugin path) export GAZEBOMASTERURI=http://XX.XXX.XX.XX:11346 (ip for gz server) gazebo --verbose velodyne.world

Move Velocity binary vel to PC 2 Open terminal with velocity executable export GAZEBOMASTERURI=http://XX.XXX.XX.XX:11346 ./vel 2 to see velodyne rotate in gazebo on PC 1. I also got a listener on PC2 obtaining LIDAR data

Here are the following options I think I have

1.Involve ROS with ROS Bridge or cros. I would rather avoid this as this would introduce an unnecessary tool dependency . ROS is not needed.

2.Install the ign transport library in the windows PC based on the info below and then link against these libraries and send receive the message using python/ C++ code. http://answers.gazebosim.org/question/19/publish-a-topic/ I believe based on http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=install_dependencies_from_source that we can use ign-trasnport1 or ign-transport2. I will explore this.I want to just use the transport library without installing the rest of gazebo and use this to send and receive messages. Has anyone successfully installed and performed this on a windows 10 PC?

3.Use a Socket-Client portable library like ZeroMQ. If I cannot get ign-transport to communicate I would have to create my own transport layer and have to send messages from a plugin as well as write a endpoint. The below example does not have an end point. http://answers.gazebosim.org/question/13321/how-to-communicate-with-gzserver-over-a-custom-socket-client/