Working with point cloud data

We can handle the point cloud data from Kinect or the other 3D sensors for performing wide variety of tasks such as 3D object detection and recognition, obstacle avoidance, 3D modeling, and so on. In this section, we will see some basic functionalities using the PCL library and its ROS interface. We will discuss the following examples:

• How to publish a point cloud in ROS

• How to subscribe and process point cloud

• How to write point cloud data to a PCD file

• How to read and publish point cloud from a PCD file

How to publish a point cloud

In this example, we will see how to publish a point cloud data using the sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 message. The code will use PCL APIs for handling and creating the point cloud, and converting the PCL cloud data to PointCloud2 message type. You will get the example code pcl_publisher.cpp from the chapter_8_codes/pcl_ros_tutorial/src folder.

#include <ros/ros.h>

// point cloud headers
#include <pcl/point_cloud.h>
//Header which...