point_cloud_transport

Description

point_cloud_transport is a ROS package for subscribing to and publishing PointCloud2 messages via different transport layers. E.g. it can provide support for transporting point clouds in low-bandwidth environment using Draco compression library.

point_cloud_transport is released as C++ source code and binary packages via ROS buildfarm.

Getting Started

Installation

Prerequisites

• ROS Melodic or Noetic
• Catkin Tools ( optional ) https://catkin-tools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installing.html

Setting up ROS workspace

Commands for creating workspace directory and cloning all necessary repositories:

$ mkdir -p point_cloud_transport_ws/src
$ cd point_cloud_transport_ws/src
$ git clone https://github.com/ctu-vras/point_cloud_transport.git
$ git clone https://github.com/ctu-vras/draco_point_cloud_transport.git
$ git clone https://github.com/ctu-vras/point_cloud_transport_plugins.git
$ rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -r

Building project

Commands for setting up catkin workspace and building the project:

$ cd ..
$ catkin init
$ catkin config --extend /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}
$ catkin config --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
$ catkin build

To build the project without Catkin Command Line Tools use the following command in the root of the workspace:

$ catkin_make_isolated --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Dependencies

• ROS Melodic or Noetic
• Draco 1.3.5 - Compression library
• Catkin tools - Command line tools for working with the catkin meta-buildsystem and catkin workspaces

Usage

point_cloud_transport can be used to publish and subscribe to PointCloud2 messages. At this level of usage, it is similar to using ROS Publishers and Subscribers. Using point_cloud_transport instead of the ROS primitives, however, gives the user much greater flexibility in how point clouds are communicated between nodes.

For complete examples of publishing and subscribing to point clouds using point_cloud_transport , see Tutorial.

C++

Communicating PointCloud2 messages using base ROS publishers and subscribers:

#include <ros/ros.h>

void Callback(const sensor_msgs::PointCloud2ConstPtr& msg)
{
  // ... process the message
}

ros::NodeHandle nh;
ros::Subscriber sub = nh.subscribe("in_point_cloud_topic", 1, Callback);
ros::Publisher pub = nh.advertise<sensor_msgs::PointCloud2>("out_point_cloud_topic", 1);

Communicating PointCloud2 messages using point_cloud_transport:

#include <ros/ros.h>
#include <point_cloud_transport/point_cloud_transport.h>

void Callback(const sensor_msgs::PointCloud2ConstPtr& msg)
{
  // ... process the message
}

ros::NodeHandle nh;
point_cloud_transport::PointCloudTransport pct(nh);
point_cloud_transport::Subscriber sub = pct.subscribe("in_point_cloud_base_topic", 1, Callback);
point_cloud_transport::Publisher pub = pct.advertise("out_point_cloud_base_topic", 1);

Additional Information

Authors

• Jakub Paplhám - Initial work - ctu-vras
• Ing. Tomáš Petříček, Ph.D. - Supervisor - tpet
• Martin Pecka - Maintainer - peci1

License

This project is licensed under the BSD License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• image_transport - Provided template of plugin interface
• Draco - Provided compression functionality

Support

For questions/comments please email the maintainer mentioned in package.xml.

If you have found an error in this package, please file an issue at: https://github.com/ctu-vras/point_cloud_transport/issues

Patches are encouraged, and may be submitted by forking this project and submitting a pull request through GitHub. Any help is further development of the project is much appreciated.