PolyScope X Open Beta Announcement

UR News & Announcements
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Dear Developer Community,

We’re excited to introduce PolyScope X, our new platform!

What’s New in PolyScope X

PolyScope X works with all e-Series robot arms, with support for UR20 and UR30 coming soon. It offers enhanced performance with a more powerful control box for a smoother experience.

We’ve significantly improved the development experience:

  • Faster UI Programming: Turnaround time is now down to seconds with web-based hot reloading.

  • Flexible Backend: Use virtually any programming language and libraries with our Docker-based backend.

  • API-First Approach: You have access to the same capabilities as we do (excluding some safety-related functions).

  • UI Components: Our design library simplifies frontend development.

  • URScript: Remains the same, now with added ROS2-based communication features.

Impact on URCap Development

All these great benefits come with a cost: the need for redevelopment. URCaps developed for PolyScope 5 are not and will not be compatible with PolyScope X, so new development is required.

PolyScope 5 Status

Over the next few years, we’ll continue selling robots based on both PolyScope 5 and PolyScope X. The insights we’ve gained from PolyScope 5 have shaped PolyScope X, and we’re continuously bringing over the features you love.

While new features (not already in development) will only be available in PolyScope X, we’ll continue to provide support and security patches for PolyScope 5 for years to come. When we decide to stop selling PolyScope 5, we’ll provide a specific end-of-life date.

Choosing Between PolyScope 5 and PolyScope X for Your URCap

Criteria Choose PolyScope 5 if… Choose PolyScope X if…
Release Timing You plan to release before January 2025 and are already developing on PolyScope 5. You plan to release after January 2025 and haven’t started development yet.
Customer Base Your customers are heavily integrated into PolyScope 5. You’re targeting new customers or looking ahead to future platforms.
Development Skills You’re experienced in Java and Java Swing and can’t upgrade skills now. You’re familiar with or willing to learn Docker, TypeScript, and Angular.

Get Started

For more information, resources, and to provide feedback, join our Early Access platform: Welcome to the PolyScope X beta!

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A few related links:

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Just looked at some of the video tutorials, looks like polycope X is a real jump forwards. Some of the features, such as an easy way for an operator to select variables, I have been longing for! I assume any programs that run on Polycope 5 won’t be compatible with polyscope X?

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Hi folks,
I’m also SUPER excited about Poly X! We’ve actually been working closely with UR to figure out our transition to X and we’ve ordered new UR20s for our next deployment with the CB5.6 and Poly X installed.
As we’ve looked into it more we came across one big caveat that we’re working through now:

  • There are NO persistent memory global variables. (Variables that persist across program runs and/or power offs)

As global variables have been critical to how we program on Poly 5, UR has offered to develop a UR cap to do that functionality for us while we wait for native PolyX global variables.
As always, the team at UR has been very helpful in working through this with us, but I just thought I’d put this out there as an extra data point for anyone considering Poly X.
Happy programming!

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Hey @sam.clayson ,

I’m glad to hear you like the new UI! We’re pretty happy with the new Operator Screen too.
And you are correct, programs are not compatible between PolyScope 5 and PolyScope X, just URScript.

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This is exciting development, looks like a much more modern and streamlined interface. Is it possible to upgrade our UR10e robot to run PolyScope X?
Also I am wondering if all the features of PolyScope 5 are supported in PolyScope X since it looks like a complete redevelopment. For example out current application heavily relies on Modbus communication. Are there any features of PolyScope 5 that did not make it into PolyScope X?
Thank you for your great work! :robot:

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In Polyscope X we have environment variables in the manifest and they are added when the containers are started.

HOWEVER the variables have the same value for the urcapx on all robots where it is installed as there is no way to edit these from the PolyscopeX user interface after installation.

For general persistence Polyscope X has persistent files which can be be used to save configuration information or anything else.

If you provide additional information about what kind of information is stored in the environment variables then I will get back with recommendation on how to do the same in Polyscope X :slight_smile: