2. Stream PCAP File

LidarView comes with a commond line utility that allows you to stream a PCAP file with a saved sensor stream as if it were a live stream. This can be usefully for a variety of reasons. If you have a very large PCAP file it can be a challenge to open the whole file at once depending on the system resources. It can be useful when exploring or demoing LidarView’s capabilities when you do not have access to a live sensor stream.

2.1. PacketFileSender tool

On Linux and Windows installations of LidarView the command line tool to steam files can be found in the bin directory of you installation. It is called PacketFileSender on Linux and PacketFileSender.exe on Windows. Basic usage for this tool is as follows along with options:

Usage: PacketFileSender <pcap_file> [options]
Allowed options:
--help                          produce help message
--ip arg (=127.0.0.1)           destination ip adress
--loop                          run the capture in loop
--lidarPort arg (=2368)         destination port for lidar packets
--GPSPort arg (=8308)           destination port for GPS packets
--speed arg (=1)                playback speed
--display-frequency arg (=1000) print information after every interval of X
                                sent packets

Exercise 2.1 (Stream a PCAP File)

Let’s stream a saved sensor stream file. If you don’t have access to PCAP file with a saved sensor stream you can download an example: CarLoop_VLP16. Run the following command from a Windows command prompt (or a terminal if on Linux).

C:\Program Files\LidarView 4.3.0\bin\PacketFileSender.exe CarLoop_VLP16.pcap

You should now be able to connect LidarView to a sensor stream running on port 2368 as is done in Exercise 1.1.