Interpretation of PointCloud2 Datatype

asked 2015-05-29 07:06:25 -0500

hannjaminbutton gravatar image

updated 2015-05-29 07:38:26 -0500

Hey,

I'm working with PointCloud2 but actually I have some problems understanding the reprsentation. I'm aware of this link, and I understand the variables header, width, height, point_step, row_step, is_bigendian and is_dense. But I have some problems with PointField[] fields and uint8[] data.

The docu says that fields describes the channels and their layout. But what kind of channels?

And data holds the actual point data? So how can I get the x,y and z coordinates of all the points stored in the PointCloud?

Thanks in advance :)

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Comments

First, tell me that which package are you using to publish the pointcloud2 message from your camera, then perhaps it can be extended from there.

Raman gravatar image Raman  ( 2015-05-29 08:15:20 -0500 )edit

Actually I have a Laserscanner and convert the sensor_msgs::LaserScan into sensor_msgs::PointCloud2, so I think that my PointCloud is unordered.

hannjaminbutton gravatar image hannjaminbutton  ( 2015-05-29 08:33:34 -0500 )edit

do you have an openni device like kinect or asus pro. then you can try working with point clouds in a better way. otherwise i beleive that you'll need to configure the laser_geometry package

Raman gravatar image Raman  ( 2015-05-29 10:38:11 -0500 )edit

No, I have no openni device. So there is no other way to get the x, y and z cooridnates?

hannjaminbutton gravatar image hannjaminbutton  ( 2015-06-01 09:47:59 -0500 )edit
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