cv::Mat to pcl::PointCloud, to data as unsigned short *? - c++

Question

I have a cv::Mat that is a depth image.
I am converting it to a PCL pointcloud like this:
PointCloud::Ptr RGBDtoPCL3(cv::Mat depth_image)
{
PointCloud::Ptr pointcloud(new PointCloud);
float fx = 481.20;
float fy = 480.00;
float cx = 319.50;
float cy = 239.50;
float factor = 1;
depth_image.convertTo(depth_image, CV_32F); // convert the image data to float type
if (!depth_image.data) {
std::cerr << "No depth data!!!" << std::endl;
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
pointcloud->width = depth_image.cols; //Dimensions must be initialized to use 2-D indexing
pointcloud->height = depth_image.rows;
pointcloud->points.resize(pointcloud->height * pointcloud->width);
pointcloud->resize(pointcloud->width*pointcloud->height);
for (int v = 0; v < depth_image.rows; v++)
{
for (int u = 0; u < depth_image.cols; u++)
{
float Z = depth_image.at<float>(v, u) / factor;
PointT p;
p.z = Z;
p.x = (u - cx) * Z / fx;
p.y = (v - cy) * Z / fy;
p.z = p.z / 1000;
p.x = p.x / 1000;
p.y = p.y / 1000;
pointcloud->points.push_back(p);
}
}
return pointcloud;
}
I am also getting the data from the Mat like this:
unsigned short* dataMat1 = depth_image.ptr<unsigned short>();
I then do some processing on the point cloud.
What i need to do now is convert the pointcloud into an unsigned short* that matches the dataMat1 above.
What would this conversion look like? Do I need to convert back to a cv::Mat and then use its ptr? Or can i just convert from pointcloud to unsigned short *?
Thank you.