pcps

pcps is a small C++11 library which provides point cloud segmentation into planes with similar surface normals.

Since pcps allows computing the segmentation into the GPU besides the CPU, it can segment an organized point cloud of 320x320 in less than 10 milliseconds on a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GB.

Features

• Organized and disorganized point clouds are allowed as input.
• Three implemenentation backends are provided: CPU, OpenCL and CUDA.
• Allocated memory can be reused between different segmentations.
• Multiple tests are present for each provided algorithm.
• A 3D test viewer allows to see the output of each segmentation algorithm and to change their thresholds.
• Base library without external dependencies (the viewer and the tests require PCL to read PCD files).
• Doxygen documentation provided for API reference (see doc/index.html).
• Licensed under MIT license.

Algorithms

To perform a point cloud segmentation, pcps provides the following algorithms:

• Organizer: organizes the given disorganized point cloud.
• NormalExtractor: estimates local surface normals at each point of the given organized point cloud.
• NormalSplitter: splits a given organized normal cloud into regions with low standard deviation.
• NormalMerger: merges the given normal regions into planes (groups) with low standard deviation.

Tested build configurations (minimum required versions may be lower)

• Ubuntu 16.04 with gcc 5.4.0.
• Ubuntu 18.04 with gcc 7.3.0.
• macOS High Sierra with clang.

Usage

The following example shows how to load a PCL point cloud stored in a PCL file PCD file) and segment it into planes:

#include <iostream>
#include <pcl/io/pcd_io.h>
#include "catch.hpp"
#include "pcps_pcl.h"
#include "pcps_context.h"
#include "pcps_plane_segmentator.h"

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZ> pclPointCloud;

    if(pcl::io::loadPCDFile("/path/to/pcl_cloud_file.pcd", pclPointCloud))
    {
        std::cerr << "pcl::io::loadPCDFile failed" << std::endl;
        return -1;
    }

    pcps::Cloud pointCloud;
    pcps::fromPCL(pclPointCloud, pointCloud);

    pcps::PlaneSegmentator planeSegmentator;
    std::vector<pcps::Plane> planes;
    std::unique_ptr<pcps::Context> context = pcps::Context::buildDefault();

    if(! planeSegmentator.segmentate(pointCloud, planes, *context))
    {
        std::cerr << "pcl::io::loadPCDFile failed" << std::endl;
        return -1;
    }

    return 0;
}

How to build

A CMakeLists.txt is provided with this library, so in order to use it you only need to include this file in your CMake project.

How to build the library with the CPU implementation

For the CPU implementation there's no external dependencies required, so the only software requirements are a C++11-compatible compiler and CMake >= 3.4:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DPCPS_IMPLEMENTATION=CPU -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j<number_of_cpu_cores>

How to build the library with the OpenCL implementation

The OpenCL implementation can segment an unorganized point cloud of 320x320 on a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GB more than 23 times faster than the CPU implementation:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
sudo apt install ocl-icd-libopencl1 opencl-headers clinfo ocl-icd-opencl-dev
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DPCPS_IMPLEMENTATION=OpenCL -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j<number_of_cpu_cores>

How to build the library with the CUDA implementation

The CUDA implementation can segment an unorganized point cloud of 320x320 on a Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GB more than 30 times faster than the CPU implementation:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DPCPS_IMPLEMENTATION=CUDA -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j<number_of_cpu_cores>

How to build and run the unit tests

The unit tests require PCL to read PCD files.

For example, to build and run the unit tests with the OpenCL implementation:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
sudo apt install ocl-icd-libopencl1 opencl-headers clinfo ocl-icd-opencl-dev
sudo apt install libproj-dev libpcl-dev
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DPCPS_BUILD_TESTS=ON -DPCPS_IMPLEMENTATION=OpenCL -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j<number_of_cpu_cores>
./tests/pcps-tests

How to build and run the viewer

The provided 3D test viewer allows to see the output of each segmentation algorithm and to change their thresholds.

The viewer requires PCL to read PCD files.

For example, to build and run the viewer with the OpenCL implementation:

sudo apt install build-essential cmake
sudo apt install ocl-icd-libopencl1 opencl-headers clinfo ocl-icd-opencl-dev
sudo apt install libproj-dev libpcl-dev
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DPCPS_BUILD_VIEWER=ON -DPCPS_IMPLEMENTATION=OpenCL -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make -j<number_of_cpu_cores>
./tests/pcps-viewer