Hey all,

I have a design question. Following the question and discussion had on ROS
Answers (http://answers.ros.org/question/12569/custom-costmap-values) I am
modifying costmap_2d to allow further types of input. I was originally
passing in a custom message with the information I wanted, but I realized
that this probably isn't the best solution. The question I open for
discussion is what the best/most useful change would be.

1) Split move_base into several separate nodes such that the arrows in this
diagram (http://ros.org/wiki/move_base#move_base-1) are messages, as
opposed to the whole thing being one giant binary with the data only
available within the C++ environment. I presume there's a good reason why
it's not written this way. However, this would allow another node to
subscribe to the costmap and publish a new one with modifications made.

2) Leave move_base as one node and modify it to use the channels of the
PointCloud to pass in a type variable. For instance if type==0 or type is
not specified, the current inflation rules are used. However, if the
type==1 say, then use gaussian inflation rules (with variance and amplitude
specified by the parameter server).

3) Use the channel values to specify all parameters for the inflation rules
(i.e. not static from the parameter server)

4) Use a custom service to populate the cost map.

There are a couple additional issues with computation time and whether to
precompute and cache the inflation functions or not, but hopefully this is
enough to start the conversation.

-David!!