PCL: Failed to find match for field 'rgba'

Question

I am using the tutorial codes of two projects from the PCL page. One is to save a pointcloud, the other is to visualize (it's frustrating that both don't exist in a simple project, unbelievable).

This is how I save the cloud:

#include <iostream>
#include <pcl/io/pcd_io.h>
#include <pcl/point_types.h>

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

  // Fill in the cloud data
  cloud.width    = 5;
  cloud.height   = 1;
  cloud.is_dense = false;
  cloud.points.resize (cloud.width * cloud.height);

  for (size_t i = 0; i < cloud.points.size (); ++i)
  {
    cloud.points[i].x = 1024 * rand () / (RAND_MAX + 1.0f);
    cloud.points[i].y = 1024 * rand () / (RAND_MAX + 1.0f);
    cloud.points[i].z = 1024 * rand () / (RAND_MAX + 1.0f);
  }

  pcl::io::savePCDFileASCII ("test_pcd.pcd", cloud);
  std::cerr << "Saved " << cloud.points.size () << " data points to test_pcd.pcd." << std::endl;

  for (size_t i = 0; i < cloud.points.size (); ++i)
    std::cerr << "    " << cloud.points[i].x << " " << cloud.points[i].y << " " << cloud.points[i].z << std::endl;

  return (0);
}

and this is how I try to visualize:

#include <pcl/visualization/cloud_viewer.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <pcl/io/io.h>
#include <pcl/io/pcd_io.h>

int user_data;

void 
viewerOneOff (pcl::visualization::PCLVisualizer& viewer)
{
    viewer.setBackgroundColor (1.0, 0.5, 1.0);
    pcl::PointXYZ o;
    o.x = 1.0;
    o.y = 0;
    o.z = 0;
    viewer.addSphere (o, 0.25, "sphere", 0);
    std::cout << "i only run once" << std::endl;

}

void 
viewerPsycho (pcl::visualization::PCLVisualizer& viewer)
{
    static unsigned count = 0;
    std::stringstream ss;
    ss << "Once per viewer loop: " << count++;
    viewer.removeShape ("text", 0);
    viewer.addText (ss.str(), 200, 300, "text", 0);

    //FIXME: possible race condition here:
    user_data++;
}

int 
main ()
{
    pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZRGBA>::Ptr cloud (new pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZRGBA>);
    pcl::io::loadPCDFile ("test_pcd.pcd", *cloud);

    pcl::visualization::CloudViewer viewer("Cloud Viewer");

    //blocks until the cloud is actually rendered
    viewer.showCloud(cloud);

    //use the following functions to get access to the underlying more advanced/powerful
    //PCLVisualizer

    //This will only get called once
    viewer.runOnVisualizationThreadOnce (viewerOneOff);

    //This will get called once per visualization iteration
    viewer.runOnVisualizationThread (viewerPsycho);
    while (!viewer.wasStopped ())
    {
    //you can also do cool processing here
    //FIXME: Note that this is running in a separate thread from viewerPsycho
    //and you should guard against race conditions yourself...
    user_data++;
    }
    return 0;
}

However, I am getting an error like this after I execute the viewer:

Failed to find match for field 'rgba'.

Any idea why isn't this simple "tutorial code" working?

Answer 1

Your problem sounds very similar to one discussed on the PCL mailing list here.

If that's the case, the problem is that your first program saves a pcl::PointXYZ point cloud, while your second program tries to read a pcl::PointXYZRGBA point cloud from disk.

Changing

pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZRGBA>::Ptr cloud (new pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZRGBA>);

to

pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZ>::Ptr cloud (new pcl::PointCloud<pcl::PointXYZ>);

should fix that problem.

---

Further reading

Under Linux you are be able to use

head test_pcd.pcd

in the console, which should print something like

# .PCD v0.7 - Point Cloud Data file format
VERSION 0.7
FIELDS x y z
SIZE 4 4 4
TYPE F F F
COUNT 1 1 1
WIDTH 5
HEIGHT 1
VIEWPOINT 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
POINTS 5

Those are the first ten lines of your PCD file, which is the file header according to the PCD file format documentation. As you can see, FIELDS x y z strongly supports the suspicion.