Open source robotic 3D mapping framework with ROS — Robot Operating System, PCL — Point Cloud Library and Cloud Compare

Abstract

We propose an open source robotic 3D mapping framework based on Robot Operating System, Point Cloud Library and Cloud Compare software extended by functionality of importing and exporting datasets. The added value is an integrated solution for robotic 3D mapping and new publicly available datasets (accurate 3D maps with geodetic precision) for evaluation purpose Datasets were gathered by mobile robot in stop scan fashion. Presented results are a variety of tools for working with such datasets, for task such as: preprocessing (filtering, down sampling), data registration (ICP, NDT), graph optimization (ELCH, LUM), tools for validation (comparison of 3D maps and trajectories), performance evaluation (plots of various outputs of algorithms). The tools form a complete pipeline for 3D data processing. We use this framework as a reference methodology in recent work on SLAM algorithms.