Open3D catkin

Open3D Catkin

This package is a catkin wrapper around Open3D.

Contact: Julian Nubert (nubertj@ethz.ch)

Overview

If no Open3D installation is present on the system, open3d_catkin is built by compiling the Open3D libraries within the catkin workspace. On a modern desktop computer this takes about 5 minutes. If an Open3D installation exists on the system, this is used instead and wrapped as a catkin package automatically. The latter can be particularly useful if multiple workspaces with these packages are compiled on the computer, or open3d_catkin is intended for longer-term usage.

EASY WAY: Install Open3d from a PPA

You can install Open3d from a PPA. The PPA contains Open3d and all dependencies. First add the PPA to your system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:roehling/open3d
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libopen3d-dev

Proceed to the open3d_catkin compilation step.

EXPERT WAY: Build Open3d from source

CMake

Version >3.18 is required to build open3d_catkin.

For installation, do:

Download the latest tar archive from https://cmake.org/download/
tar -xf cmake-<version>-rc4.tar.gz, where <version> can for example be 3.23.1.

Then install this cmake version by doing

cd cmake-<version>-rc4.tar.gz
./configure
make -j12
sudo make install

Open3D Dependencies

Execute either the original installation script from open3d: script, or our fetched version via sudo ./install_deps.sh

If you don’t want to install open3d locally, skip the next step and proceed to the open3d_catkin compilation step.

Optional Step - Install Open3D Locally

As an optional step, open3d can be installed, either locally in the home folder or as a global system dependency.

Make sure you have installed the correct CMake version (see above)

Clone the following repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/isl-org/Open3D.git
cd Open3D
git checkout v0.15.1

Then, update the submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Create a build directory and build from source:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DUSE_SYSTEM_EIGEN3=OFF -DGLIBCXX_USE_CXX11_ABI=ON -DBUILD_PYTHON_MODULE=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${HOME}/Programs/open3d_install ..
make -j$(nproc)
make install

CUDA Support

If you want to compute with cuda support add the following flag when configuring the cmake -DBUILD_CUDA_MODULE=ON. In this case you might have to manually specify the path to your nvcc compiler. This can be done by adding the CMAKE_CUDA_COMPILER:PATH flag when invoking the cmake; e.g. -DCMAKE_CUDA_COMPILER:PATH=/usr/local/cuda-11.5/bin/nvcc. It can still happen that you get weird include errors in which case you should not use the system eigen, i.e. -DUSE_SYSTEM_EIGEN3=OFF

Set Local Paths

To build the catkin package, the simplest way is to add the sufficient environment variable to your bashrc:

export Open3D_DIR="<your install prefix>/lib/cmake/Open3D"

E.g.

export Open3D_DIR="$HOME/Programs/open3d_install/lib/cmake/Open3D"

open3d_catkin Compilation

Once Open3D has been installed, compilation of open3d_catkin is then really straightforward:

catkin build open3d_catkin

The 3 compilation options are chosen automatically in the following order:

open3d is installed locally and the $Open3D_DIR environment variable is pointing to the installation location. The success of this is indicated through the message INFO: Found manually set path to Open3D. Using version located at (some user-specified location). _
open3d is installed globally. Both of these options should compile within a few seconds.
If none of the before cases holds, open3d is automatically pulled locally and compiled inside the workspace. on an Intel i9 12900K this takes roughly 4min 30s.

Usage of open3d_catkin in your project

Usage in your catkin project is then straightforward.

CMakeLists.txt

set(CATKIN_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES
  open3d_catkin
)
...
find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS
  ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES}
)
...

catkin_package(
  ...
  CATKIN_DEPENDS
    ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES}
  DEPENDS
)
...
include_directories(
  ${catkin_INCLUDE_DIRS}
  ...
)
...
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME}
  ${catkin_LIBRARIES}
  ...
)

An example of this can be seen in ../open3d_slam/CMakeLists.txt.

Code Usage

Headers from open3d can then be included as usual:

#include <open3d/...>

You’re done with open3d_catkin installation, you can proceed with the open3d_slam compilation step here.