[Rock-dev] Octomap Visualization Plugin

[Jakob Schwendner]

Hi Gabriel,

> I am writing a Vizkit 3D plugin in order to visualize an octomap with Rock.
> My first try was putting a every leaf on a osg:Box, but this was consuming a
> lot of memory and crashing the system with relative big maps.
I think I read that the osg primitives are not meant to be used for large arrays of objects. 

> I am currently using an pointcloud approach and using points to visualize each
> leaf. However there is a loss of information, because I can't alter the size of
> the "cubes".
> 
> Any ideas of a memory efficient approach? In the octovis (octomap
> visualization tool) it forms a cube by hand and then uses it to form the map,
> do you think this approach will be good, I am affraid of wasting time on a
> dead end.
This is definitely a viable approach. You can have a look at the MLS visualization in envire, its doing a similar thing (drawing boxes). 
Your other idea using points is also feasible. There is also the possibility to change the size of the points depending on their z-distance. I seem to remember this uses features which may not be supported by all opengl drivers. Have a look at the pointcloud visualization in envire, I think this feature is used there.

Cheers,

Jakob