3-D Mapping With an RGB-D Camera

In this paper, we present a novel mapping system that robustly generates highly accurate 3-D maps using an RGB-D camera. Our approach requires no further sensors or odometry. With the availability of low-cost and light-weight RGB-D sensors such as the Microsoft Kinect, our approach applies to small domestic robots such as vacuum cleaners, as well as flying robots such as quadrocopters. Furthermore, our system can also be used for free-hand reconstruction of detailed 3-D models. In addition to the system itself, we present a thorough experimental evaluation on a publicly available benchmark dataset. We analyze and discuss the influence of several parameters such as the choice of the feature descriptor, the…