hey,

In GAZEBO i am trying to generate point cloud messages that not only contain 3D point information but also information on the belonging object class (e.g. Wall, Table, Chair, Door) for each point.

I thought about creating a custom ros message that in a addition to the pc2-msg would contain an int array indexed just like the pc2. i thought i indicate the class of an object model in the sdf file via an additional parameter "class" valued with an int. as a last step i would then need to write plugins for the models but also for the sensor that creates this message.

the problem seems to be that i cannot handle the process of laserscan creation (the actual ray "shooting" and interpretion yadayada^^) myself. which makes this elegant solution difficult without build gazebo from sources and adding this functionality.

am i right?

gazebo features intensity for each ray on an object and i could use this as a work around like so: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8722866 (scientific paper)

still i don't think it is an elegant solution to the problem.. thoughts?