Output Point Cloud File

2 VersionsOutput

Writes each upstream PointCloud to a file under output_path in the layout chosen by file_format (binary or ASCII PLY, PCD, or XYZ), subsampling with every_n and bounding retention with max_files.

How it fits

Typical backends

Reconstruction sink. Stand in a depth-to-cloud stage and persist each frame's point cloud to disk for offline inspection.

Filtered capture. Derive a per-frame point cloud, gate it through a transform, and write only the retained clouds.

Caveats

I/O contractThe PLY layouts differ in size and speed — binary little-endian is the fastest and most compact, ASCII PLY is human-readable but far larger; PCD is ASCII, and XYZ emits bare coordinate columns with no header.
I/O contractColours are quantised to 8-bit on write by multiplying each channel by color_scale_out and clipping to the 0-255 range; the default scale maps normalised [0,1] colours back to bytes.
Hard constraintA every_n of zero is rejected at startup; the smallest legal value of one saves every incoming cloud.
State lifetimeA positive max_files keeps only the most recent files as a rolling window in arrival order, deleting older outputs in output_path.
State lifetimeThe filename index is a process-local counter that resets on restart, so reusing output_path overwrites earlier files unless filename_prefix also varies.

Versions

6ff169b5default
Automated release
8/1/2026