Maintainers and volunteers needed for Point Cloud Library (PCL)

General
1

Hey everyone,

PCL is looking for more maintainers. The level of involvement is dependent on the maintainers themselves. Some minimal qualifications for maintainers include:

  • Past experience with PCL
  • Time to triage issues, review PRs and create bug-fixes
  • Enthusiasm for Open Source and PCL

Please introduce yourself over at discord. Please keep in mind that the posts of maintainer are not being handed out. You will need to show your capability beforehand (if you’re a new face on the PCL GitHub)

What is PCL

PCL is a large modular library licensed under BSD-3 Open Source License and focuses on providing tools for working with Point Clouds and 3D sensors. Please visit the website or our GitHub to know more

We have a discord server for informal and live chats. Feel free to pop over and say Hi!

Volunteers needed

We’re looking for more eyes on the project. Majority of the project is in C++ along with parts in CUDA, with CMake as the build system. Just a heads up: some parts will soon have a Python component. So if you’re a Python aficionado, just hang in there.

Knowledge of data structures like octree, kdtree or algorithms for working with point clouds is a plus.

Apart from the code, we’re also looking for volunteers with skills or an interest in developing their skill-set in

  • technical writing and communication (docs, content on website such as blog posts)
  • QA, testing (tests and benchmarks)
  • devops (CI/CD)
  • ReadTheDocs, sphinx, breathe (CI/CD with tests and documentation)

FAQ

  1. How much time do I need to contribute?
    Ans: Everyone can contribute to the level they wish. There is no minimum time required or such hurdles for contributors

  2. I have skills in C++, but no experience in PCL. How can I start helping PCL?
    Ans: IO (input, output) module can be the first place for you to start. If you have a sensor, or an internet connection to download input files, you can help improve the speed as well as robustness of this module.

  3. I have some familiarity with PCL or C++ or XYZ. How can I test the waters?
    Ans: You can dip your toe in safely by looking at issues labelled as “good first issue”. Please find them here on GitHub. There are other labels such as effort: low, help wanted as well as several with specialized skill (eg: skill: cmake) for narrowing down pre-triaged bugs.

  4. Who do I contact before contributing?
    Ans: Nobody. Just choose an issue (or create one IFF it doesn’t exist) and comment that you would be working on it. If possible, please join the discord server for faster and synchronous communication.

  5. Why are you reaching out here?
    Ans: Based on PCL’s community survey, ROS community is the biggest active community using PCL. As such, it makes sense to have a voice from this community in PCL.

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