ROS2 specific libraries and utilities

cloudini_topic_converter

A simple node that subscribes to one of these two topic types and publishes the other:

• sensor_msgs/msg/PointCloud2
• point_cloud_interfaces/msg/CompressedPointCloud2

It is genrally more efficient than using the point_cloud_transport because the latter would:

1. Receive a serialized DDS message.
2. Convert that to CompressedPointCloud2.
3. Do the actual decompression.
4. Convert PointCloud2 to a serialized DDS message.

Instead, we work directly with raw serialized messages, bypassing the ROS type system, skipping steps 2 and 4 in the list above.

Parameters

• topic_input (string): name of the topic to subscribe to.
• topic_output (string): name of the topic to publish into.
• compressing(bool): true if you are subscribing to a regular pointcloud2, and you want to compress it. False if you are subscribing to a compressed topic and you want to decompress it.
• resolution (double): resolution of floating point fields in meters. Default: 0.001

Example usage

To convert a regular sensor_msgs/msg/PointCloud2 to a compressed one:

ros2 run cloudini_ros cloudini_topic_converter --ros-args \
    -p compressing:=true  \
    -p topic_input:=/points  \
    -p topic_output:=/points/compressed

To decompress that topic back in to its original form:

ros2 run cloudini_ros cloudini_topic_converter --ros-args \
    -p compressing:=false  \
    -p topic_input:=/points/compressed  \
    -p topic_output:=/points/decompressed

Composable Node (Component Container)

The topic converter is also available as a composable node, allowing it to be loaded into a component container for reduced overhead when running multiple nodes in the same process.

# Start a component container
ros2 run rclcpp_components component_container

# Load the topic converter as a component
ros2 component load /ComponentManager cloudini_ros CloudiniPointcloudConverter \
  -p compressing:=true \
  -p topic_input:=/points \
  -p topic_output:=/points/compressed \
  -p resolution:=0.001

Or via launch file:

from launch_ros.actions import ComposableNodeContainer, LoadComposableNodes
from launch_ros.descriptions import ComposableNode

container = ComposableNodeContainer(
    name='cloudini_container',
    namespace='',
    package='rclcpp_components',
    executable='component_container',
)

converter = LoadComposableNodes(
    target_container='cloudini_container',
    composable_node_descriptions=[
        ComposableNode(
            package='cloudini_ros',
            plugin='CloudiniPointcloudConverter',
            parameters=[{
                'compressing': True,
                'topic_input': '/points',
                'topic_output': '/points/compressed',
                'resolution': 0.001,
            }],
        ),
    ],
)

cloudini_rosbag_converter

A command line tool that, given a rosbag (limited to MCAP format), converts all sensor_msgs/msg/PointCloud2 topics into compressed point_cloud_interfaces/msg/CompressedPointCloud2 of vice-versa.

Encoding/decoding is faster than general-purpose compression algorithms and achieves a better compression ratio at 1mm resolution.

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Changelog for package cloudini_ros

1.3.1 (2026-09-20)

• No changes; released together with cloudini_lib 1.3.1

1.3.0 (2026-09-20)

• Fix license tags in package.xml According to ros_license_toolkit[\^1] license tags should be in SPDX list of licenses. In case of claudini_ros, the license version was missing and in case of claudini_lib, the license name was not "exact". This commit changes the license tags to use SPDX license identifiers. Note that it doesn't fix the failures reported in claudini_lib in the output below: [cloudini_ros] git hash of (/home/src/github.com/facontidavide/cloudini): d202e5255d12519ff1f3db1dac4df3ca0e550ee7 SchemaCheck SUCCESS Detected package.xml version 3, validation of scheme successful. LicenseTagExistsCheck SUCCESS Found licenses ['Apache'] LicenseTagIsInSpdxListCheck WARNING Licenses ['Apache'] are not in SPDX list of licenses. Make sure to exactly match one of https://spdx.org/licenses/. LicenseTextExistsCheck WARNING Since they are not in the SPDX list, we can not check if these tags have the correct license text: 'Apache': License text file '../LICENSE' is of license Apache-2.0 but tag is Apache. LicensesInCodeCheck WARNING For the following files, please change the License Tag in the package file to SPDX format: 'include/cloudini_plugin/cloudini_publisher_plugin.hpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'include/cloudini_plugin/cloudini_subscriber_plugin.hpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'include/cloudini_ros/cloudini_subscriber_pcl.hpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'include/cloudini_ros/conversion_utils.hpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/cloudini_publisher_plugin.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/cloudini_subscriber_pcl.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/cloudini_subscriber_plugin.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/conversion_utils.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/plugin_manifest.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'src/topic_converter.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/draco_helper.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/draco_helper.hpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/rosbag_benchmark.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/test_cloudini_subscriber.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/test_direct_publisher.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/test_plugin_publisher.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. 'test/test_plugin_subscriber.cpp' is of Apache-2.0 but its Tag is Apache. LicenseFilesReferencedCheck SUCCESS All license declaration are referenced by a tag. --------------------[cloudini_lib] git hash of (/home/src/github.com/facontidavide/cloudini): d202e5255d12519ff1f3db1dac4df3ca0e550ee7 SchemaCheck SUCCESS Detected package.xml version 3, validation of scheme successful. LicenseTagExistsCheck SUCCESS Found licenses ['Apache 2.0'] LicenseTagIsInSpdxListCheck WARNING Licenses ['Apache 2.0'] are not in SPDX list of licenses. Make sure to exactly match one of https://spdx.org/licenses/. LicenseTextExistsCheck WARNING Since they are not in the SPDX list, we can not check if these tags have the correct license text: 'Apache 2.0': License text file '../LICENSE' is of license Apache-2.0 but tag is Apache 2.0. LicensesInCodeCheck FAILURE The following files contain licenses that are not covered by any license tag: 'benchmarks/pcd_benchmark.cpp': ['MIT'] 'cmake/CPM.cmake': ['MIT'] 'include/cloudini_lib/ros_message_definitions.hpp': ['BSD-3-Clause'] 'include/cloudini_lib/contrib/ankerl/stl.h': ['MIT'] 'include/cloudini_lib/contrib/ankerl/unordered_dense.h': ['MIT'] LicenseFilesReferencedCheck SUCCESS All license declaration are referenced by a tag. [\^1]: https://github.com/boschresearch/ros_license_toolkit
• Contributors: Michal Sojka

1.2.2 (2026-06-04)

• build: synchronized version bump with cloudini_lib (MSVC support; no functional changes here)

1.2.1 (2026-05-20)

• ci(rolling): build point_cloud_interfaces from source via vcstool until the apt-sync drop is resolved

1.2.0 (2026-05-05)

1.1.0 (2026-04-20)

• feat(gorilla): Gorilla bit-packed XOR for FLOAT64 lossless (backward compatible) (#93)
• Contributors: Davide Faconti

1.0.4 (2026-04-06)

• fix(ros): use ament_target_dependencies for pcl_conversions pcl_conversions 2.8.0 on Kilted switched from ament_export_include_directories to ament_export_targets, making ${pcl_conversions_INCLUDE_DIRS} empty and breaking the buildfarm. Use ament_target_dependencies which handles both old-style

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