Static route validation using costmap

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I am trying to implement a validator for routes on a given map. The idea is that a user can define a route using a JSON scheme which is then checked against a costmap generated from a static map of the building in order to determine whether the route can be traversed. Ideally, the whole thing should run on a server without any robots involved.

I am new to ROS and am having a few difficulties figuring out the dependencies between the map_server and the costmap. Here's what I tried so far:

1. I have the map of the building and the corresponding YAML file and have started the map server using rosrun map_server map_server map.yaml.

2. I tried running rosrun costmap_2d costmap_2d_cloud, which produces no output on the console.

3. In rviz, I can add the voxel_marked_cloud and voxel_unknown_cloud topics published by costmap, but they are not displayed.

4. rqt_graph shows me that costmap is not subscribed to the /map topic published by map_server:

   

5. I have tried starting the costmap with YAML config files using parameters static_map: true and publish_voxel_map: true, but to no avail.

What am I doing wrong? Currently I am just trying to get a static costmap to display from a map image and failing.