khashf / velodyne_test

Set up guide:

• Prelimary set up (similar to Ouster) http://wiki.ros.org/velodyne/Tutorials/Getting%20Started%20with%20the%20Velodyne%20VLP16
• The manual file in velodyne_ws named VLP16_User_Manual.pdf
• Default Lidar IP: 192.168.1.201
• Test connection to the lidar by putting lidar's IP address onto browser
• sudo route add <lidar's IP> <your ethernet interface>

Build driver

$ cd velodyne_ws
$ catkin_make

Visualization and Recording

• You can viz data by either rviz or VeloView. To use rviz, by following instructions at http://wiki.ros.org/velodyne/Tutorials/Getting%20Started%20with%20the%20Velodyne%20VLP16 , but (to the best of my knowledge), we can only record data by VeloView. I found it's much easier to viz with VeloView
• To launch VeloView, get into velodyne_ws/VeloView/VeloView-3.5.0-Linux-64bit/bin directory and issue ./VeloView
• More on VeloView is on page 114 of the manual VLP16_User_Manual.pdf
• VeloView records data into pcap files. It doesn't output bag files. See steps to converts them to bag files below.

Convert pcap file (generated by VeloView) to bag file (which we can use with rviz)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/45136563/how-to-convert-pcap-data-of-velodynes-vlp-16-to-point-cloud-without-using-velov

1st tab

$ roscore

2nd tab (run your .pcap file):

$ rosrun velodyne_driver velodyne_node _model:=VLP16 _pcap:=/path/to/pcap/file _read_once:=true

TODO: Should we set _read_once:=true?

3rd tab: (create .bag file to visualize in Rviz)

$ rosrun rosbag record -O </path/to/bag/file/we/want/to/be/created> /velodyne_packets

4th tab: Replay the bag file which publishes/plays recorded data to topic(s)

$ rosbag play <path/to/bag/file>

5th tab: (to convert velodyne_msgs/VelodyneScan to /Pointcloud2 and /LaserScan topic to visualize in Rviz):

roslaunch velodyne_pointcloud VLP16_points.launch

6th tab:

rosrun rviz rviz -f velodyne

To viz topic: Displays -> Add -> By topic -> <topic name>

Published topics

• /scan
• /velodyne_points