Velodyne HDL-32E to laserscan

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I'm planning to use gmapping to create the 3D environment for our robot, so I'm assemble a tilting hokuyo laser scanner and using the corresponding driver.

For long term, I plan to use the velodyne laser scanner. The issue is the velodyne package appears to be outputting in pointcloud2 format, instead of laserscan format.

I see options such as using the pointcloud_to_laserscan to create the map. There is also ethzasl package I saw recommended on another post, but we need loop closer.

I basically would like to hear your experiences with using a velodyne lidar for a fast/higher quality 3D map or if the tilting hokuyo would be a viable permanent solution.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!