Reading .las file, processing and displaying it with PCL

Question

I used libLAS library to read the cloud points of a .las file. Then I stored the points in a PCL point cloud variable in order to process and display the point cloud using the Point Cloud Library.

This is the code that I used:

class PointCloud
{
    public:
        //PointCloud(const std::string& path);

        uint32_t getVertsCount();
        float4* getVertsData();

        template<typename PointT>
        typename pcl::PointCloud<PointT>::Ptr read(const std::string& path);//void read(const std::string &path);
}

template<typename PointT>
typename pcl::PointCloud<PointT>::Ptr PointCloud::read(const string& path)
{
    typename pcl::PointCloud<PointT>::Ptr lasCloud(new pcl::PointCloud<PointT>);

    std::ifstream ifs;
    ifs.open(path, std::ios::in | std::ios::binary);
    //std::ifstream inf(path, std::ios::in | std::ios::binary);

    liblas::ReaderFactory f;
    liblas::Reader reader = f.CreateWithStream(ifs);
    liblas::Header const& header = reader.GetHeader();

    std::cout << "Compressed: " << (header.Compressed() == true) ? "true" : "false";
    std::cout << "Signature: " << header.GetFileSignature() << '\n';
    std::cout << "Points count: " << header.GetPointRecordsCount() << '\n';

    while (reader.ReadNextPoint())
    {
        liblas::Point const& p = reader.GetPoint();

        PointT cloudPoint;
        cloudPoint.x = float(p.GetX()) * 0.001 + 590284.000; // (double)(x * scaleX) + offsetX;
        cloudPoint.y = float(p.GetY()) * 0.001 + 4339456.000; // (double)(y * scaleY) + offsetY;
        cloudPoint.z = float(p.GetZ()) * 0.001 + 157.000; // (double)(z * scaleZ) + offsetZ;
        std::cout << p.GetX() << ", " << p.GetY() << ", " << p.GetZ() << "\n";
        //cloudPoint.intensity = p.GetIntensity(); // (double)(intensity) / 65536.0;
        lasCloud->points.push_back(cloudPoint);
    }

    if (!ifs.good())
        throw runtime_error("Reading went wrong!");
        
    
    lasCloud->width = lasCloud->points.size();
    lasCloud->height = 1;
    lasCloud->is_dense = true;
    std::cout << "Cloud size = " << lasCloud->points.size() << endl;
    return lasCloud;
    

}

int main (int argc, char** argv)
{
    
    std::cout << "starting enviroment" << std::endl;
    pcl::visualization::PCLVisualizer::Ptr viewer (new pcl::visualization::PCLVisualizer ("3D Viewer"));
    CameraAngle setAngle = FPS; //XY, FPS, Side, TopDown
    initCamera(setAngle, viewer);
    pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZ>::Ptr inputCloudI; //
    inputCloudI = pcd.read<pcl::PointXYZ>("C:/Users/hedey/OneDrive/Documents/Research_papers/STDF/10_4231_MFQF-Q141/I-65/LiDAR/RoadSurface/NB/20180524_I65_NB_RoadSurface_1_50.5.las");
    std::cout << "Cloud size = " << inputCloudI->points.size() << endl;
    renderPointCloud(viewer, inputCloudI, "lasCloud");
    while (!viewer->wasStopped())
    {
        viewer->spinOnce();
    }
}

However, the displayed cloud using the PCL viewer looks like one point. What I noticed is that when I printed out the coordinates that I read using libLAS, the x & y coordinates don't have decimal values, which is inaccurate compared to the actual coordinates stored in the las file. I got the actual point coordinates using las2txt from the command prompt. This is the txt file containing the actual coordinates. And here is an image showing the cout results:

Also, this is how the point cloud looks like when I opened it using CloudCompare. I look forward to geting the same displayed when I read it into a PCL Point Cloud variable and display the results using the PCL viewer, because I'll need to do further processing in order to make sensor fusion (Camera and Lidar).

Answer 1

The default precision of std::cout is 6 decimal digits. Please add something like

    std::cout.precision(12);

before the while loop.

Also, casting p.GetX() etc. to float is pointless: if you multiply it by 0.001, the left hand side of the argument of operator* will naturally by promoted to at least double. However, float has only about 7 digits of precision, so for 9-digit integers stored inside doubles (yes!) such truncation is catastrophic.

Also there's another (minor) error, the correct line reads

    std::cout << "Compressed: " << ((header.Compressed() == true) ? "true\n" : "false\n");

Please notice the () braces surrounding the conditional expression (and \n). Please use standard compiler options that will warn against such simple issues.

Please read also https://stackoverflow.com/help/minimal-reproducible-example