Choose a Recording Method

Choose a recording approach based on what you need to preserve and how you plan to inspect or replay it. The Recording section currently covers five options:

Choose a Recording Method: method, what it captures, advantages, trade-offs, and best fit.

Method	What it captures	Advantages	Trade-offs	Best fit
SOPASair Recorder | .sc	Sensor measurement scenarios saved through the SOPASair-linked recorder application.	Captures real scenes for repeatable analysis, replay, and sharing with support.	Requires installing and connecting the separate recorder application; the illustrated workflow is for picoScan100. It does not replace a configuration backup or raw packet capture.	Reproducing an LRS4000, multiScan100, or picoScan100 measurement scenario during troubleshooting or application validation.
Wireshark | pcap	Raw Ethernet packets exchanged between sensor and host.	Preserves the protocol traffic for troubleshooting, support cases, and decoder development; can be decoded later with the Compact dissector.	Captures can be large and include traffic that is not useful to the analysis. You need protocol knowledge or a dissector to interpret measurement payloads.	Debugging network or protocol problems; keeping evidence of exactly what was transmitted.
ROS Bag | db3	ROS topics recorded from a running ROS 1 or ROS 2 setup.	Plays back through familiar ROS tools and preserves the topic/message interface used by the application. Useful for repeatable robotics testing and replay.	Requires the ROS publisher, topic setup, and a compatible ROS environment while recording; it records published topics rather than the underlying Ethernet exchange.	Replaying a robotics scenario for SLAM, perception, or application testing.
ScanSegmentAPI | JSON	Compact or MSGPACK measurement data stored as JSON.	Portable structured output that is convenient to inspect, process, and replay after capture without the sensor.	JSON is generally more verbose than a binary recording format; MSGPACK applies only where the selected device supports it.	Capturing LRS4000, multiScan100, or picoScan100 measurement data for offline analysis or automated tests.
sick_perception_sdk	Application-consumed Compact events and scan-derived point clouds; provides conversion utilities such as PCD output.	Provides C++ APIs, event-driven data acquisition, configuration and diagnostic capabilities, and building blocks for application-specific processing.	Requires a C++ application and build/dependency setup; it is not a turnkey recorder.	Integrating capture for LRS4000, multiScan100, or picoScan100 into an application or building a custom processing pipeline.

These methods capture at different layers and are not interchangeable. A SOPASair Recorder saves measurement scenarios; a packet capture is useful when you need the exact wire traffic; a ROS bag stores ROS messages; ScanSegmentAPI stores structured measurement data; and the SDK is a development library for building a custom application.

If you are unsure, start with SOPASair Recorder for a supported measurement scenario, ROS Bag when your application already runs in ROS, Wireshark for a communication problem, or ScanSegmentAPI for JSON recordings.