Revision history [back]

Take a look at the gazebo/spawn_sdf_modelrosservice, which takes a SpawnModel. You would create a short sdf string that creates a sphere with your desired properties (similar to the xml string in http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=plugins_world, but the surrounding gazebo api stuff isn't needed). Leave out any <collision>. <kinematic>true</kinematic> isn't supported yet, I'm not sure if <gravity>false</gravity>is needed.

Every time you calculate a new sphere location you would call the set_model_state service to set the position of the sphere.

I'm going through something similar right now and will update this in a few hours.