Sanja,

p.spin () is supposed to "freeze" everything ("freeze" is not properly used here though :) until you press q/e. Try 
pressing "h" for a list of things that the viewer can do.

p.spinOnce () can definitely be run on a loop as shown in the tutorials that I mentioned and 
pcl_tutorials/pairwise_incremental_registration.

Cheeres,
Radu.

On 08/11/2010 10:28 AM, Sanja Popovic wrote:
> Whoops, my bad. I'm already doing that. P.spin() freezes everything until closing the window and p.spinOnce() just keeps the point cloud displayed for specified amount of time while also freezing everything else. What I would like is to keep the visualization on screen without stopping the execution of program. Am I missing on something or is this impossible to do?
>
> Thanks,
> Sanja
> ________________________________________
> From: Radu Bogdan Rusu [rusu@willowgarage.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 1:11 PM
> To: ros-users@code.ros.org
> Cc: Sanja Popovic
> Subject: Re: [ros-users] PCL visualizer - deprecated header
>
> On 08/11/2010 10:03 AM, Sanja Popovic wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I didn't use it much, just to see what are my point clouds like. Is there any way I can keep the window with the point cloud open while my program continues to execute? ros::spin stops it there until I close the window and I couldn't find any way around it.
>
> Yup, take a look at p.spin and p.spinOnce (we're mimicking the ros standard there), where p is a PCLVisualizer object.
> The test examples should exhibit the same behavior, and you can look into pcl_tutorials at
> pairwise_registration_alignment for a fancier example that uses viewports (oh, pcd_viewer also does that if you enable
> -multiview).
>
> Cheers,
> Radu.
> --
> | Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/

-- 
| Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/