We recently added a new ROS interface to help users working with pointclouds(PCD) in UWSim: the ROSPointCloudLoader. This interface allows to hear pointclouds from a topic and visualize them on the 3D main window. The code takes all the required parameters, such as reference frame, from the pointcloud so there is only one parameter the topic name. Besides this parameter, an attribute can be configured to disable deleting the last PCD when a new one is received. This can be useful for laser stripe reconstruction to see the PCD building process. This is an example of how to include it into your scene XML file:

  <ROSPointCloudLoader delLastPCD="false">
    <topic>/laser_stripe/points2</topic>
  </ROSPointCloudLoader>

This example shows a PCD viewer for laser stripe reconstructions. In the following video you can see it running on both, a stereo reconstruction, and a laser stripe reconstruction. As can be seen in the video pointclouds will only be visible in the main windows, so it will not cause problems in virtual cameras.

Hope this feature helps debugging when working with pointclouds!.