---
id: cmeel-urdfdom
version: "6.0.0"
license: BSD-3-Clause
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# cmeel-urdfdom — cmeel distribution for urdfdom, URDF parser

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 876.8K/mo

## What it is and what it does

cmeel-urdfdom is a Python distribution of the urdfdom library, which parses URDF (U-Robot Description Format) files—XML-based robot model descriptions used in robotics and simulation. It reads URDF files and populates internal data structures representing robot links, joints, geometry, and constraints. The package supports three URDF versions: 1.0 (basic robot models), 1.1 (adds quaternion orientation and capsule geometry), and 1.2 (adds extended joint limits for acceleration, deceleration, and jerk).

The package is distributed via cmeel, a wheel-building framework for C++ libraries. It depends on cmeel, cmeel-console-bridge, and cmeel-tinyxml2 for XML parsing and logging. It is actively maintained, making it a stable choice for robotics projects that need to load and inspect robot descriptions programmatically.

Use it for:

- Load robot models in simulations or control systems to extract link/joint topology and geometry
- Parse URDF files in robotics research or motion planning tools to access kinematic chain information
- Validate URDF files for correctness before deployment in simulation or real robot systems
- Extract collision/visual geometry from robot descriptions for path planning or visualization
- Inspect joint limits and constraints (including version 1.2 acceleration/deceleration) for trajectory generation

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Parses URDF (U-Robot Description Format) XML files into Python data structures, supporting versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 with features like quaternion orientation, capsule geometry, and extended joint limits.

Yes, with conditions. Install if you need to parse URDF files in Python and are on a supported platform (macOS 10.9+ or Linux with glibc 2.28+) running Python >=3.10. The package is actively maintained, permissively licensed, and widely used. Medium install friction is acceptable for the functionality. Not suitable if you need Python <3.10 or are on an unsupported architecture.

## Install

pip install cmeel-urdfdom
uv add cmeel-urdfdom
poetry add cmeel-urdfdom

## Installing cmeel-urdfdom

Before you install: Medium install friction due to compiled binary wheels for specific platforms (macOS x86_64/arm64, Linux aarch64/x86_64). Active maintenance with recent release. Requires Python >=3.10.

License in practice: BSD-3-Clause permissive license allows use in commercial and proprietary projects with minimal restrictions; requires only license and copyright notice retention.

Quickstart:

pip install cmeel-urdfdom

import urdfdom
# Parse a URDF file
robot = urdfdom.urdf.URDF.from_xml_file('robot.urdf')

Requires Python >=3.10. Binary wheels available only for macOS (10.9+ x86_64, 11.0+ arm64) and Linux (glibc 2.28+ aarch64/x86_64); other platforms may require compilation.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package provides a Python API or only wraps the C++ library via cmeel
- What specific methods and classes are exposed for accessing parsed URDF data
- Whether version 1.2 features (acceleration, deceleration, jerk limits) are fully accessible from Python
- Actual usage patterns and API surface for the Python bindings

## Package facts

- License: BSD-3-Clause (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: medium
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 876.8K/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

urdf parser python, robot description format xml, urdf loader, robot model parsing, urdf to data structure, robot description parsing, urdf xml parser, robotics, urdf-parser, xml-parsing

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