How can I add C++ optimization flags to ROS

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Call catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release to turn on the default optimization flags for release builds. -O3 should be in there, as far as I know.

Otherwise, you can add compile flags on a per node basis by specifying set_target_properties(<TARGET> PROPERTIES COMPILE_FLAGS "-O3") in the CMakeLists.txt. However, I'm not sure how this is handled then in combination with a build type.