Sensor base backend - first structure

[fedeoli]

Moving BaseSensorBackend from base_backend to sensor_backend. BaseSensorBackend is a base class for sensor backends. It includes methods for initializing sensor parameters, fetching data (get_data), transforming data into desired reference frames (transform), and reading sensor data (read_sensor). The read_sensor method checks if data transformation is needed based on frame references.

Questions:

• does it make sense as a structure? I was thinking of adding different backends for specific sensors inheriting from BaseSensorBackend, for instance, creating a CameraSensorBackend going into the details of how generic cameras work, and then finalizing the implementation in the pybullet_backend file.
• are the features in SensorBaseBackend general enough? Can you think of something else?
• Comments on the coding? Specifically, the read_sensor method should be an abstract interface depending on more sensor-dependent actions (get_data, transform). Does it make sense to use abstractmethod do delegate the actual implementation to lower-level classes?

[omershalev]

General comment so far: we should exclude various files from Git. This includes the .vscode folder and all .pyc files. These need to be included in the .gitignore file (the ones already uploaded to Github need to be manually deleted).

[omershalev]

With regards to ABC - that is indeed the way people do it in Python, though it isn't necessary to use it.
I personally refrained from using it thus far, but it isn't necessarily the right thing to do.
Do you know the pros and cons for using it?

[fedeoli]

No, not really; I just found it a good answer to the question: what if I know there will be this method in the children, but it will be different in each of them?

Also, how can you avoid using it? Just with a pass or a raise.NotImplementedError() ?

[omershalev]

Yep, raise NotImplementedError and pass indeed.
ABC is probably the better recommended way so let's go with it, I'll read a little more about it.