This library includes some tools for laser handling in ROS. At the moment two nodes are available:

• laserscan_multi_merger
• laserscan_virtualizer

Both use part of the pointcloud_to_laserscan code available in ROS.

Laserscan_merger allows to easily and dynamically (rqt_reconfigure) merge multiple, same time, single scanning plane, laser scans into a single one; this is very useful for using applications like gmapping, amcl, pamcl on vehicles with multiple single scanning plane laser scanners, as these applications require just one laser scan as input. The scanning planes need to be approximately the same. The resulting scan will appear generated from a single scanner dis-regarding actual occlusions as seen from the merged scans; for instance, consider the case of 2 scanners mounted on the 2 front corners A and B of a rectangular vehicle (we live in 2D); each scanner gives out a 270degs scan, from along the long side of the vehicle going backward to toward the other scanner. The merged scan will appear as generated from a virtual scanner positioned in C, halfway A and B, and measuring the same measures of the merges scans, irregardless of the occlusions that would apply to a real scanner positioned in C.

Laserscan_virtualizer allows to easily and dynamically (rqt_reconfifure) generate virtual laser scans from a pointcloud such as the one generated by a multiple scanning plane laser scanner, e.g., a velodyne scanner). The only requirement is the rototranslation between the virtual laser scanner and the base frame to be known to TF.

The documentation is at the moment very brief, for any question please contact us at furlan@disco.unimib.it or augusto.ballardini@unimib.it

Paper link: https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.1086

Both nodes compile under catkin in hydro/indigo and use PCL1.7

Changelog for package ira_laser_tools

1.0.7 (2021-10-30)

• Use the same header in published scan as the published cloud
• Fix a concurrency issue
• Contributors: JackFrost67, MikHut, Auri

1.0.6 (2021-08-12)

• add check for PCL version
• add new mantainer email
• fix launch before laser scan is available
• add a try catch for first non valid tf
• Retrying compare topics between ROS master and Token
• Contributors: JackFrost67

1.0.4 (2020-02-14)

• fix worning "<command-line>:0:0: warning: missing whitespace after the macro name"
• change email maintainer
• Contributors: Pietro Colombo

1.0.3 (2020-02-13)

• fix #14 now we use math library for pi
• bugfix
• Merge branch 'kinetic'
• fix issue fix#14
• Create LICENSE
• Create LICENSE
• Merge pull request #11 from mikaelarguedas/patch-1 add libvtk-qt dependency to fix debian stretch builds
• add libvtk-qt dependency to fix debian stretch builds
• Contributors: Mikael Arguedas, Pietro Colombo, pietrocolombo

1.0.2 (2018-08-28)

• add libvtk-qt dependency to fix debian stretch builds and link to paper in README.md
• Contributors: Pietro Colombo

1.0.1 (2018-07-18)

1.0.0 (2018-07-11 10:30:16 +0200)

• add url for wiki in pakage.xml
• adding license
• introduce a param in param file expand the range limit of laser and minor bug fix
• Merge pull request #1 from leonziegler/installprocedure Added possibility to install artifacts. Merged. Thanks :-)
• Merge branch 'master' of projects.ira.disco.unimib.it:/repository/git/ira_laser_tools Conflicts: CMakeLists.txt
• this commit fixes #265 \@5m
• Fixed the Eigen3 required in the CMakeLists.txt
• updating readme
• removing eigen dependency
• Update laserscan_virtualizer.launch description of base_frame param. updated
• Added possibility to install artifacts.
• changes to README.md
• global refactoring
• Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/iralabdisco/ira_laser_tools
• going to version 1.0; useful tutorial on .launch file for laservirtualizer; the overall virtualscanner procedure is now simpler
• First README.md version
• adding readme file
• Fixed the include bug
• First commit
• Contributors: Augusto Luis Ballardini, Axel Furlan, Fabio Nava, Iralab Universita Milano Bicocca, Leon Ziegler