autoware_utils_pcl

Overview

The autoware_utils library is a comprehensive toolkit designed to facilitate the development of autonomous driving applications. This package provides essential utilities for point cloud. It is extensively used in the Autoware project to handle common tasks such as point cloud transformations.

Design

• pcl_conversion.hpp: Efficient conversion and transformation of PointCloud2 messages to PCL point clouds.
• transforms.hpp: Efficient methods for transforming and manipulating point clouds.

Example Code Snippets

Efficient Point Cloud Conversion with pcl_conversion.hpp

#include <autoware_utils_pcl/pcl_conversion.hpp>
#include <sensor_msgs/msg/point_cloud2.hpp>
#include <pcl/point_types.h>
#include <pcl/PCLPointCloud2.h>
#include <Eigen/Core>
#include <rclcpp/rclcpp.hpp>

int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
  rclcpp::init(argc, argv);
  auto node = rclcpp::Node::make_shared("pcl_conversion_node");

  // Load point cloud data
  sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2 cloud_in; // Assume this is populated with data
  pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZ> pcl_cloud;

  // Define transformation matrix
  Eigen::Matrix4f transform = Eigen::Matrix4f::Identity();
  // Populate transform matrix with actual values

  // Convert and transform point cloud
  autoware_utils::transform_point_cloud_from_ros_msg(cloud_in, pcl_cloud, transform);

  rclcpp::shutdown();
  return 0;
}

Changelog for package autoware_utils_pcl

1.9.0 (2026-06-29)

1.8.0 (2026-06-10)

• test(autoware_utils_pcl): cover transform_point_cloud_from_ros_msg with hand-computed assertions (#105) The templated transform_point_cloud_from_ros_msg<Scalar> in pcl_conversion.hpp had zero test coverage (the existing test/cases/transform.cpp only exercises transform_pointcloud from transforms.hpp). Add a new gtest file test/cases/pcl_conversion.cpp that builds sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2 messages by hand (three tightly-packed FLOAT32 x/y/z fields) and asserts hand-computed output coordinates with Scalar=float:

  - identity transform on an unorganized (height==1) cloud: output size/width/ height/is_dense and each point copied exactly;

  - a known 90deg-about-Z rotation plus translation on an unorganized cloud, with per-point expected coordinates computed by hand;

  • an organized 2x2 cloud (height>1) exercising the row/col nested loop;
  • header.frame_id propagation;

  - a sizeof(pcl::PointXYZ)==16 stride sanity check. The file is picked up by the existing GLOB_RECURSE in CMakeLists.txt. Add sensor_msgs to package.xml (kept sorted) for the PointCloud2 dependency. No production code changes.

• Contributors: Yutaka Kondo

1.7.2 (2026-05-01)

• fix: to be consistent version in all package.xml(s)
• Contributors: github-actions

1.7.0 (2026-03-12)

1.6.0 (2026-02-20)

1.5.0 (2025-12-30)

1.4.2 (2025-05-21)

1.4.1 (2025-05-15)

1.4.0 (2025-04-22)

• test(autoware_utils): port unit tests from autoware.universe (#28)
• feat: remove managed transform buffer (#41)
• Contributors: Amadeusz Szymko, storrrrrrrrm

1.3.0 (2025-03-21)

• unify version

• update changelog

• feat(autoware_utils_tf): rename package (#46)

• feat(autoware_utils_pcl): split package (#29)

  • feat(autoware_utils_pcl): split package
  • add maintainer
  • fix build error
  • add compatibility
  • rename package

  * update readme ---------

• Contributors: Takagi, Isamu, Yutaka Kondo

• feat(autoware_utils_tf): rename package (#46)

• feat(autoware_utils_pcl): split package (#29)

  • feat(autoware_utils_pcl): split package
  • add maintainer
  • fix build error
  • add compatibility
  • rename package

  * update readme ---------

• Contributors: Takagi, Isamu

1.2.0 (2025-02-26)

1.1.0 (2025-01-27)

1.0.0 (2024-05-02)