How to update the ros driver for the Velodyne VLP-16

Question

Hey,

I am very new to the ROS and 3D LIDAR and today I got the Velodyne VLP-16 LIDAR from our group, somehow I can not let it working properly. Here is some detail description of my problem:

I am using ROS indigo. First we I did is to use the sample data in the flash drive and uses some ROS command (http://www.pcl-users.org/Convert-pcap-to-pcd-Velodyne-HDL32E-td4034165.html) to convert the data from .pcap to .pcd format in order to run some PCL functions. The sample data was from HDL32E LIDAR and I had no problem of this part since the velodyne_pointcloud folder has the 32e_points.launch file.

Next step, I saved a .pcap file from the VLP-16 LIDAR and wanted to repeat the same procedure. Somehow this time I could not make it working since there is no VLP16_points.launch file in the velodyne_pointcloud folder!!! Then I searched online and from Github I saw the newest folder of the Velodyne driver do include the VLP16_points.launch, so I wonder what procedure should I do to upgrade the Velodyne related files to the newest version?

Since I am really new to this area so all suggestions will be highly appreciated!

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Originally posted by boyihu on ROS Answers with karma: 21 on 2015-12-11

Post score: 2

Answer 1

There has not been an Indigo release of the Velodyne packages in over a year: https://github.com/ros-drivers/velodyne/issues/59

To get the newer features (VLP-16 support) you will have to compile from source. Clone the velodyne repository into your workspace. Then build your workspace with catkin_make.

http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/using_a_workspace#With_catkin_make

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Originally posted by kmhallen with karma: 1416 on 2015-12-12

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 5

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Original comments

Comment by joq on 2015-12-14:
That is correct. We are working on a new Indigo release that will include VLP-16 support and some other items, but it's not quite ready to go yet. Soon, I hope.

Comment by chukcha2 on 2016-03-02:
I am using one from github but am curious what kind of issues in the git repo, if any, prevent it from being released.

Comment by joq on 2016-03-02:
Insufficient testing and documentation, and not enough time in my schedule. If you wish to help with the first two, please let me know.

Comment by marilia15 on 2016-05-19:
I can help with that, I am using velodyne 32 and two devices of velodyne 16.

Comment by joq on 2016-05-19:
That would be great. The code is nearly ready at this point, but the docs need a good review to bring everything up to date.

Comment by joq on 2016-05-19:
There are detailed building instructions here: http://answers.ros.org/question/226594/how-do-i-build-ros-vlp16-velodyne-driver-for-indigo-using-catkin/