Recording CFAR "PointCloud" Data
- John Marshall
The RAS radar family’s CFAR “PointCloud” data output is provided as a UDP network stream.
The linux command line application at the download link below allows this UDP output stream to be logged directly to a CSV file for subsequent analysis or processing. As well as logging the range and bearing of each point within the point cloud, the tool logs the magnitude of the radar response, and precise timestamp information.
Alongside the CSV data file containing the data provided over the UDP connection, this tool establishes a TCP/IP connection with the radar to read back the current radar serial number and configuration, storing these in a text file.
If a radar has the SafeGuard user interface enabled, then the (Window-size), (Threshold value), (Start bin) and (Max points per azimuth) parameters can be configured via the radar’s web interface.
If the radar does not have the SafeGuard user interface enabled, these parameters can be configured by sending the Colossus message type 205 TCP Networking | Navigation Configuration Get/Set Messages. For simplicity. the same colossus message ID is used to update the equivalent Navigation Mode parameters.
To use the recording tool within the Windows Subsystem for Linux environment (WSL), it is necessary to route UDP packets from Windows through to WSL. Instructions are at the bottom of this page.
Point-cloud Writer
The pointcloud_writer application records navigation point-cloud output from a radar and writes it to a file as comma-separated variables (CSV).
The application also retrieves the radar and navigation configuration and stores it in a name-associated file.
The output from the pointcloud_writer is two files, the configuration and the data. The format of the file is:
YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<tag>.cfg - configuration
YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<tag>.csv - dataFor example:
20231123_153106_pointcloud.cfg
20231123_153106_pointcloud.csv
The date/time is generated automatically by the application. The <tag> can be specified on the command-line and could be used to identify, for example, a particular radar.
Command-line options for the pointcloud_writer application are as follows:
-i - The TCP address of the radar [default: 192.168.0.1]
-p - The TCP port of the radar [default: 6317]
-u - The UDP address where point-cloud data is send (usually the host PC) [default: 127.0.0.1]
-d - The UDP port for point-cloud data [default: 6317]
-f - The file tag for identifying output files [default: "pointcloud"]
-m - Turn OFF configuration meta data [default: create radar meta data]For example:
This will produce two files:
(NOTE - the date/time will reflect the actual time the application is run!)
This will produce only one file:
Running in Windows Subsystem for Linux
to route UDP packets from Windows to WSL, the sudppipe utility is used
Windows command line syntax for the use of sudppipe is as shown below:
<WSL IP> can be retreived by entering
for example, if <WSL IP> is reported as 172.20.71.120:
With sudpipe running as shown above, start up the pointcloud_writer within the WSL environment, pointing the UDP connection to <WSL IP> and port to 6320, (not 6317).