Installation Guide

Recommended Environments

We recommend Windows and these Linux distributions.

• Ubuntu 16.04/18.04 64bit

• MacOS 10.9/10.10/10.11/10.12

• Windows 7/8.1/10 64bit

The following versions of Python can be used: 2.7.6+, 3.5.1+, and 3.6.0+.

python-pcl is supported on Python 2.7.6+, 3.4.0, 3.5.0+, 3.6.0+. python-pcl uses C++ compiler such as g++. You need to install it before installing python-pcl. This is typical installation method for each platform:

Linux(Ubuntu)

PCL 1.7.2(use apt)

1.Install PCL Module.

$ sudo apt install libpcl-dev -y

Reference <https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=libpcl-dev>

PCL 1.8.0 (build module)([CI Test Timeout])

1.Build Module

Reference here.

MacOSX

use homebrew

1.Install PCL Module.

$ brew tap homebrew/science

$ brew install pcl

Warning:

Current Installer (2017/10/02) Not generated pcl-2d-1.8.pc file.(Issue #119)

Reference PointCloudLibrary Issue.

Pull qequests 1679.

Issue 1978.

circumvent:

$ copy travis/pcl-2d-1.8.pc file to /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig folder.

Windows

before Install module

Case1. use PCL 1.6.0

Windows SDK 7.1

            PCL All-In-One Installer

            32 bit

            64 bit

            OpenNI2[(PCL Install FolderPath)\3rdParty\OpenNI\OpenNI-(win32/x64)-1.3.2-Dev.msi]

Case2. use 1.8.1

            Visual Studio 2015 C++ Compiler Tools

            PCL All-In-One Installer

            32 bit

            64 bit

OpenNI2[(PCL Install FolderPath)\3rdParty\OpenNI2\OpenNI-Windows-(win32/x64)-2.2.msi]

        Common setting


Windows Gtk+ Download

Download file unzip. Copy bin Folder to pkg-config Folder

or execute powershell file [Install-GTKPlus.ps1].

Python Version use VisualStudio Compiler

set before Environment variable


1.PCL_ROOT


set PCL_ROOT=%PCL Install FolderPath%


2.PATH

(pcl 1.6.0)

$ set PATH=%PCL_ROOT%/bin/;%OPEN_NI_ROOT%/Tools;$(VTK_ROOT)/bin;%PATH%

(pcl 1.8.1)

$ set PATH=%PCL_ROOT%/bin/;%OPEN_NI2_ROOT%/Tools;$(VTK_ROOT)/bin;%PATH%

If you use old setuptools, upgrade it:

$ pip install -U setuptools

Dependencies

Before installing python-pcl, we recommend to upgrade setuptools if you are using an old one:

$ pip install -U setuptools

The following Python packages are required to install python-pcl. The latest version of each package will automatically be installed if missing.

• PointCloudLibrary 1.6.x 1.7.x 1.8.x 1.9.x

• NumPy 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, 1.13, …

• Cython >=0.25.2

Install python-pcl

Install python-pcl via pip

We recommend to install python-pcl via pip:

$ pip install python-pcl

Note

All optional PointCloudLibrary related libraries, need to be installed before installing python-pcl. After you update these libraries, please reinstall python-pcl because you need to compile and link to the newer version of them.

Install python-pcl from source

The tarball of the source tree is available via pip download python-pcl or from the release notes page. You can use setup.py to install python-pcl from the tarball:

$ tar zxf python-pcl-x.x.x.tar.gz
$ cd python-pcl-x.x.x
$ python setup.py install

You can also install the development version of python-pcl from a cloned Git repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/strawlab/python-pcl.git
$ cd pcl/Python
$ python setup.py install

When an error occurs…

Use -vvvv option with pip command. That shows all logs of installation. It may help you:

$ pip install python-pcl -vvvv

Install python-pcl for developers

python-pcl uses Cython (>=0.25.2). Developers need to use Cython to regenerate C++ sources from pyx files. We recommend to use pip with -e option for editable mode:

$ pip install -U cython
$ cd /path/to/python-pcl/source
$ pip install -e .

Users need not to install Cython as a distribution package of python-pcl only contains generated sources.

Uninstall python-pcl

Use pip to uninstall python-pcl:

$ pip uninstall python-pcl

Note

When you upgrade python-pcl, pip sometimes install the new version without removing the old one in site-packages. In this case, pip uninstall only removes the latest one. To ensure that python-pcl is completely removed, run the above command repeatedly until pip returns an error.

Upgrade python-pcl

Just use pip with -U option:

$ pip install -U python-pcl

Reinstall python-pcl

If you want to reinstall python-pcl, please uninstall python-pcl and then install it. We recommend to use --no-cache-dir option as pip sometimes uses cache:

$ pip uninstall python-pcl
$ pip install python-pcl --no-cache-dir

When you install python-pcl without PointCloudLibrary, and after that you want to use PointCloudLibrary, please reinstall python-pcl. You need to reinstall python-pcl when you want to upgrade PointCloudLibrary.

FAQ