Eigen3 and PCL are not being exported properly by velodyne_pointcloud

[benjaminholdennearearth]

Please complete the following information:

• OS and Version: Ubuntu 22.04
• ROS Version: Humble
• Built from Source or Downloaded from Official Repository: Official Repository
• Version: 2.5.1-1jammy.20241031.171005

Describe the bug
Eigen and PCL are not being exported properly by velodyne_pointcloud

• CMakeLists.txt Line 154 should be "Eigen3"

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to velodyne meta package CMakeLists.txt
2. Add a line: find_package(velodyne_pointcloud REQUIRED)
3. Try to build colcon build --packages-up-to velodyne
4. See error about "By not providing "Findeigen.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project..."
5. Change velodyne_pointcloud CMakeLists.txt line: 154 to Eigen3
6. Remove previous build artifacts
7. Rebuild (step 3)
8. See that Eigen is now fine but the same error appears only about PCL this time
9. Change velodyne_pointcloud CMakeLists.txt line: 157 to PCL
10. Remove previous build artifacts
11. Rebuild (step 3)
12. View that all errors are gone now

Expected behavior
Eigen3 and PCL should be exported properly by ament so that any package that has a build dependency on "velodyne_pointcloud" can build properly

Additional context
I believe that in general the name of the package used in the find_package(...) command should match the name (and case) used in the ament_export_dependencies command.

I hope this issue request is helpful and thank you for the hard work you all put into this software.

[hect95]

Hi,

I am also experiencing this in Ubuntu 22.04 😢

[benjaminholdennearearth]

Hi Hector! While this issue is open here is how you can work around this.

1. Comment out your find_package(velodyne_pointcloud) call in your CMakeLists.txt file
2. Add the following code to your CMakeLists.txt file to "manually" find the package

# Manually pull in velodyne_pointcloud libraries "velodyne_rawdata" and "velodyne_cloud_types"
# - Change the headers in `find_path(...)` if other headers are needed
# - Change the libraries in `find_library(...)` if other libraries are needed
find_path(
  LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR NAMES
    calibration.hpp
    convert.hpp
    datacontainerbase.hpp
    organized_cloudXYZIRT.hpp
    pointcloudXYZIRT.hpp
    rawdata.hpp
    transform.hpp
  PATH_SUFFIXES velodyne_pointcloud)
find_library(LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY NAMES velodyne_rawdata velodyne_cloud_types)
include(FindPackageHandleStandardArgs)
find_package_handle_standard_args(libvelodyne_pointcloud DEFAULT_MSG LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR)
mark_as_advanced(LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR)
add_library(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE IMPORTED GLOBAL)
target_link_libraries(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE ${LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY})
target_include_directories(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE ${LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR})

Then later when creating your library do something like this

add_library(my_velodyne_library src/my_velodyne_library.cpp)
ament_target_dependencies(my_velodyne_library ${my_dependencies}) # do not include velodyne_pointcloud here
target_include_directories(my_velodyne_library
  PUBLIC
  $<BUILD_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include>
  $<INSTALL_INTERFACE:include/${PROJECT_NAME}>
)
target_link_libraries(my_velodyne_library libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud) # now link to velodyne_pointcloud

[hect95]

Hi Hector! While this issue is open here is how you can work around this.

1. Comment out your find_package(velodyne_pointcloud) call in your CMakeLists.txt file
2. Add the following code to your CMakeLists.txt file to "manually" find the package

# Manually pull in velodyne_pointcloud libraries "velodyne_rawdata" and "velodyne_cloud_types"
# - Change the headers in `find_path(...)` if other headers are needed
# - Change the libraries in `find_library(...)` if other libraries are needed
find_path(
  LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR NAMES
    calibration.hpp
    convert.hpp
    datacontainerbase.hpp
    organized_cloudXYZIRT.hpp
    pointcloudXYZIRT.hpp
    rawdata.hpp
    transform.hpp
  PATH_SUFFIXES velodyne_pointcloud)
find_library(LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY NAMES velodyne_rawdata velodyne_cloud_types)
include(FindPackageHandleStandardArgs)
find_package_handle_standard_args(libvelodyne_pointcloud DEFAULT_MSG LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR)
mark_as_advanced(LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR)
add_library(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE IMPORTED GLOBAL)
target_link_libraries(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE ${LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_LIBRARY})
target_include_directories(libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud INTERFACE ${LIBVELODYNE_POINTCLOUD_INCLUDE_DIR})

Then later when creating your library do something like this

add_library(my_velodyne_library src/my_velodyne_library.cpp)
ament_target_dependencies(my_velodyne_library ${my_dependencies}) # do not include velodyne_pointcloud here
target_include_directories(my_velodyne_library
  PUBLIC
  $<BUILD_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include>
  $<INSTALL_INTERFACE:include/${PROJECT_NAME}>
)
target_link_libraries(my_velodyne_library libvelodyne_pointcloud::libvelodyne_pointcloud) # now link to velodyne_pointcloud

Hi @benjaminholdennearearth

Thanks for sharing this!

As I'm running this driver inside a Docker container using the Debian version of the velodyne_pointcloud package, and based on your initial suggestions on how to resolve this in the source code, I was able to build my launch package, which depends on velodyne_pointcloud, with the following:

sed -i 's/\beigen\b/Eigen3/g' /opt/ros/humble/share/velodyne_pointcloud/cmake/ament_cmake_export_dependencies-extras.cmake 

sed -i 's/\bpcl\b/PCL/g' /opt/ros/humble/share/velodyne_pointcloud/cmake/ament_cmake_export_dependencies-extras.cmake

I don't think this is the ideal approach, but it should keep me going until this issue is resolved 😅