This is an example ROS2 (python) package which demonstrates how to utilize the sensor_msg.msg.PointCloud2. The various scripts show how to publish a point cloud represented by a numpy array as a PointCloud2 message, and vice versa. I also demonstrate how to visualize a point cloud in RViz2.

Note: This was initially posted on SebastianGrans.github.io, but this is the more recent version.

This is now updated to work on ROS2 Galactic

Move to your ROS workspace source folder, e.g:

cd ~/dev_ws/src

Clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/SebastianGrans/ROS2-Point-Cloud-Demo.git

Compile:

cd ~/dev_ws/
source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.sh
colcon build --symlink-install --packages-select pcd_demo
source install/

Source the installation:

cd ~/dev_ws/
source install/local_setup.sh # If you use bash
# _or_
source install/local_setup.zsh # If you use zsh

ros2 launch pcd_demo pcd_publisher_demo.launch.py

RViz should now show a spinning Utah teapot!

ros2 run pcd_demo pcd_publisher_node ~/dev_ws/src/ROS2-Point-Cloud-Demo/resource/teapot.ply    

In a new terminal:

ros2 run rviz2 rviz2

Make sure the Displays panel is visible Panels > [✔] Displays. Then, in the lower corner, press Add and select PointCloud2. In the list, expand PointCloud2 and specify pcd as the topic.

RViz should now show a spinning Utah teapot!

This demo is similar to the one above, but rather than relying on RViz, we instead use Open3D for visualization.

Note: This is not yet fully optimized. It needs to be threaded such that the Open3D interface is responsive.

ros2 launch pcd_demo pcd_pubsub_demo.launch.py

In one terminal, run the publisher:

ros2 run pcd_demo pcd_publisher_node ~/dev_ws/src/pcd_publisher/resource/teapot.ply    

and in another terminal, run the subscriber node:

ros2 run pcd_demo pcd_subscriber_node