Catkin_make on the velodyne drivers fails in the windows 10 environemnt

Question

I am trying to install the ROS-Velodyne drivers(https://github.com/ros-drivers/velodyne) in windows to capture the point cloud from velodyne LiDAR but getting error while running catkin_make.

Since these drivers require pcap library, i installed WinPcap in my system and updated the cmake of velodyne driver to find the required headers and link the library. But on running the cmake, i am getting error on "target_link_libraries" (image shown)

Cannot specify link libraries for target "velodyne_driver" which is not built by this project

Following is the cmake file of velodyne_driver package:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8.3)
project(velodyne_driver)

# Set minimum C++ standard to C++11
if (NOT "${CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_COMPUTED_DEFAULT}")
  message(STATUS "Changing CXX_STANDARD from C++98 to C++11")
  set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -std=c++11")
elseif ("${CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_COMPUTED_DEFAULT}" STREQUAL "98")
  message(STATUS "Changing CXX_STANDARD from C++98 to C++11")
  set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)
endif()

set(${PROJECT_NAME}_CATKIN_DEPS 
    diagnostic_updater
    dynamic_reconfigure
    nodelet
    roscpp
    tf
    velodyne_msgs)

find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS ${${PROJECT_NAME}_CATKIN_DEPS} roslint)

# This driver uses Boost threads
find_package(Boost REQUIRED COMPONENTS thread)

# kinger: libpcap provides no pkg-config or find_package module:
#message (STATUS "****** Starting PCAP Search in folder:  ********")
set( PCAP_DIR "C:/workspace/WpdPack" )
#message (STATUS ${PCAP_DIR})
#kinger: Include file FindPCAP.cmake
include(FindPCAP.cmake)
#find_package( PCAP REQUIRED )
message (STATUS "******* FIND PCAP TASK FINISHED **********")
message (STATUS ${PCAP_FOUND})
message (STATUS ${PCAP_INCLUDE_DIRS})
message (STATUS ${PCAP_LIBRARY_DIRS})
message (STATUS ${PCAP_LIBRARIES})

#set(libpcap_LIBRARIES -lpcap)
if(PCAP_FOUND)
  # Include Directories
  include_directories( ${PCAP_INCLUDE_DIRS} )
  # Library Directories (Option)
  link_directories( ${PCAP_LIBRARY_DIRS} )

  # Dependencies
  target_link_libraries( ${PROJECT_NAME} ${PCAP_LIBRARIES} )
endif()

include_directories(include ${Boost_INCLUDE_DIR} ${catkin_INCLUDE_DIRS})

# Generate dynamic_reconfigure server
generate_dynamic_reconfigure_options(cfg/VelodyneNode.cfg)

# objects needed by other ROS packages that depend on this one
catkin_package(CATKIN_DEPENDS ${${PROJECT_NAME}_CATKIN_DEPS}
               INCLUDE_DIRS include
               LIBRARIES velodyne_input)

# compile the driver and input library
add_subdirectory(src/lib)
add_subdirectory(src/driver)

install(DIRECTORY include/${PROJECT_NAME}/
        DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_INCLUDE_DESTINATION})
install(FILES nodelet_velodyne.xml
        DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION})
install(DIRECTORY launch/
        DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION}/launch)
install(PROGRAMS src/vdump
        DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_BIN_DESTINATION})

roslint_cpp()

if (CATKIN_ENABLE_TESTING)

  # these dependencies are only needed for unit testing
  find_package(roslaunch REQUIRED)
  find_package(rostest REQUIRED)

  # Download packet capture (PCAP) files containing test data.
  # Store them in devel-space, so rostest can easily find them.
  catkin_download_test_data(
    ${PROJECT_NAME}_tests_class.pcap
    http://download.ros.org/data/velodyne/class.pcap
    DESTINATION ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION}/tests
    MD5 65808d25772101358a3719b451b3d015)
  catkin_download_test_data(
    ${PROJECT_NAME}_tests_32e.pcap
    http://download.ros.org/data/velodyne/32e.pcap
    DESTINATION ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION}/tests
    MD5 e41d02aac34f0967c03a5597e1d554a9)
  catkin_download_test_data(
    ${PROJECT_NAME}_tests_vlp16.pcap
    http://download.ros.org/data/velodyne/vlp16.pcap
    DESTINATION ${CATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX}/${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION}/tests
    MD5 f45c2bb1d7ee358274e423ea3b66fd73)
  
  # unit tests
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_node_hertz.test)
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_nodelet_hertz.test)
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_32e_node_hertz.test)
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_32e_nodelet_hertz.test)
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_vlp16_node_hertz.test)
  add_rostest(tests/pcap_vlp16_nodelet_hertz.test)
  
  # parse check all the launch/*.launch files
  roslaunch_add_file_check(launch)

  # unit test
  catkin_add_gtest(time_test tests/timeconversiontest.cpp)
  target_link_libraries(time_test
    ${catkin_LIBRARIES}
    ${Boost_LIBRARIES}
    ${PCAP_LIBRARIES})
endif (CATKIN_ENABLE_TESTING)

UPDATE: Resolved the above issue. It was related to target_link_libraries where we need to provide the "target" and not the "project". I updated the cmake by adding this line:

set(libpcap_LIBRARIES ${PCAP_LIBRARIES})

Now, the build fails at 59% with following error:

C:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\include\diagnostic_updater/update_functions.h(188): error C2589: 'constant': illegal token on right side of '::'

Looks like this is an open issue: https://github.com/ms-iot/ROSOnWindows/issues/280

Answer 1

I'm happy to see that you are using ROS on Windows! I'd love to know more about your project. We (Azure Edge Robotics, who maintain ROS on Windows) don't currently have a Velodyne lidar, so have not attempted to port it.

It looks like the Velodyne Lidar ROS node has not been enabled on Windows. It looks like there are several linux specific commands in the cmake file which need windows equivalents.

We have a porting guide for Windows here - https://ms-iot.github.io/ROSOnWindows/GettingStarted/PortingANode.html

It there is a winpcap vcpkg which can be leveraged in the port: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/tree/master/ports/winpcap

I've created this on the ROSonWindows github to track: Catkin_make on the velodyne drivers fails in the windows 10 environemnt