Exploiting the generated map by Cartographer

The map initially generated by cartographer is rough and low resolution. It can be processed afterwards to generate a high resolution map using the .bag file with the original sensor data, the captured cartographer state in the .pbstream file as well as a .lua configuration file (Example). This is also where you define the file format for the output, for example if you specify "points.ply" in the config file the output will be a ".bag_points.ply" file. (Ply is mainly used for 3D scans so it will probably not be used for this project, its simply an example. Instead .pcd will most likely be used)

More info and how to configure the .lua config file can be found here

To visualize a .pcd file, the perception_pcl package for ros is required. Once it is installed, built and a .pcd file is present the command rosrun perception_pcl pcd_viewer <filename> will visualize the point cloud map.