Include option to use PointCloud Transport

[SteveMacenski]

Per https://github.com/ros-perception/point_cloud_transport, we can now use compressed pointcloud streams in ROS 2. We can enable those in the Costmap layers that ingest pointcloud sensor streams (i.e. obstacle, voxel) and the collision monitor and show that this reduces network traffic without composed nodes to keep up better (and CPU impacts).

We would want sensor drivers and depth pipelines to have the option to output this as well to be able to ingest in Nav2 out of the box. Rviz2 + Gazebo would be ideal as well to publish PC2 from Gazebo into Rviz without as much latency

CC @ahcorde

[Combuster54]

Hi, could you provide more info? I would like to contribute if it´s possible.

[xFranv8]

I'm taking this issue. Thanks!

[SteveMacenski]

@xFranv8 any updates?

[elsayedelsheikh]

I think we have a similar case to image_transport package, where image_transport and point_cloud_transport don't have LifecycleNode support

• [ROS2] image_transport does not support LifecycleNode ros-perception/image_common#108
• Support lifecycle node ros-perception/image_common#304

https://github.com/ros-perception/image_common/blob/b021202a42d7bc3ff3215237ded251a59c282da5/image_transport/include/image_transport/publisher.hpp#L72-L77

https://github.com/ros-perception/point_cloud_transport/blob/0350a390bdd8cc39c509b71614a4c613457ce909/point_cloud_transport/include/point_cloud_transport/publisher.hpp#L59-L64

Should we wait till it gets implemented in point_cloud_transport? or/ work around it?