v0.11.8

• Parameters are saved in the database (useful when sharing databases)
• More memory efficient GUI.
• New odometry parameter (Odom/AlignWithGround) that can be used to initialize the camera accordingly to the floor, thus aligning the bottom of the point cloud to xy plane. See Preferences -> Odometry panel.
• Figures are now shown with time on x-axis instead of IDs by default, so we can now have on the same figure odometry and mapping time statistics.
• Integrated OctoMap (3D occupancy grid map) in the core library. See Preferences -> Occupancy Grid Map panel to activate it. In contrast to raw point clouds, the octomap can clear 3D dynamic obstacles. The advantage of this more tighter integration is to correct online the octomap when loop closures are detected. The octomap can be exported via menu File -> "Export octomap...".
• OdomF2M: Updated how local scan map is updated
• Added Zed SDK v1.0.0 support with new visual odometry option. See Preferences -> Source, then Zed related panel.
• Multi-camera:
  • Some bug fixes and improvements
  • Multi-frustum in GUI
• Planning: using fly distance instead of path distance to update current goal
• rtabmap_ros:
  • rgbd_odometry and stereo_odometry can be used as nodelets
  • Added some octomap topic outputs to rtabmap node for convenience
• Some minor fixes and improvements

v0.11.7

• Special build for the Zed stereo camera on Windows (download the related zip below). You may have to install CUDA 7.5 and Zed SDK (tested with 0.9.4) to make it work.
  • The Zed camera is under the Stereo submenu in sensor selection. For more Zed parameters, see Preferences -> Source, select Stereo as source and scroll down to select Zed sdk driver, then you will have most of the Zed parameters (resolution, quality and sensing mode). You can also set a SVO file as input.
  • To avoid a lot of warning messages about depth conversion from 32 bits to 16 bits, uncheck parameter Save depth image into 16 bits format to reduce memory used... under Memory panel in Preferences (Advanced).
  • To have similar results than ZedFu, activate meshing at the bottom of Preferences->3D rendering panel and set Angle tolerance to 30 degrees. You can also limit the 3D cloud maximum depth under Map and Odometry columns to 3 meters. Setting Zed quality to Quality (instead of Performance) could also give better meshes.
• Tested on Windows 7/10 and built on Visual Studio 2015 with Qt5, PCL 1.8, g2o, cvsba and OpenCV 3 (with SIFT/SURF). Installation errors:
  • Update OpenCL if you have "The procedure entry point clReleaseDevice cound not be located in the dynamic link library OpenCL.dll"
  • Install visual studio 2015 redistributable if you have "Missing vcomp140.dll".
• Note that for the Kinect v2, UsbDK is now used. See libfreenect2 page for more info.

v0.11.2

Pre-release for 0.11

v0.10.10

New features

• New incremental FLANN dictionary (Kp/IncrementalFlann, default true), improving a lot loop closure performance with much lower CPU needed for the same map size.
• Fixed a bug in Bayes prior generation. The results from this paper can now be reproduced exactly again (see Benchmark page). Note that this bug was introduced on December 11 2012.
• New actions in File menu: Export images, Export poses.
• Improved DatabaseViewer (Tools->Edit database...) performance when browsing large databases.
• New odometry option:
  • Odom/VarianceFromInliersCount: Set variance as the inverse of the number of inliers. Otherwise, the variance is computed as the average 3D position error of the inliers.
• RANSAC regression for PnP (3D->2D) transformation estimation on OpenCV3 (using RANSAC of OpenCV2 in OpenCV3). This fixed large errors with odometry when PnP was used.
• New robust graph optimization options:
  • RGBD/OptimizeMaxError (default 1 m): Reject loop closures if optimization error is greater than this value (0=disabled). This will help to detect when a wrong loop closure is added to the graph.
  • RGBD/OptimizeRobust (default true): Robust graph optimization using Vertigo (only for g2o and GTSAM optimization strategies). This approach can filter wrong loop closure detections.
• Some other minor fixes.

ROS specific

• New Indigo/Jade binary releases (should be public soon)
• Fixed TF flickering in Localization mode when some nodes are transferred to or retrieved from the Long-Term Memory.
• Updated default rgbd_mapping.launch and stereo_mapping.launch files.
• rtabmap node:
  • Added parameter cloud_floor_culling_height: remove the ground, affecting only /rtabmap/cloudMap topic.
  • Added parameter cloud_frustum_culling: filter the old clouds in the FOV of the current camera position, affecting only /rtabmap/cloudMap topic.
  • Added /rtabmap/mapGraph topic for convenience when we only need the graph.
• Topological planning improvements (documentation still needs to be updated)

v0.10.5

Pre-release for Export Raster Layers to MeshLab tutorial.

v0.10.2

• Windows binaries are now built with libfreenect2 support for Kinect v2 (Xbox One).
  1. You will need to use libusbK driver instead of Windows Kinect SDK. Follow only "libusbK driver" section of libfreenect2 webpage.
  2. Then open RTAB-Map and select "RGB-D camera" -> "Kinect v2" -> "Freenect2" and press start. By default the resolution is SD. To change resolution to HD, open Preferences menu and under Source tab, select the Freenect2 format you want: 1) RGB+Depth SD, 2) RGB+Depth HD, 3) IR+Depth. The third one works in the dark!
  3. The Kinect v2 has also a higher range than the Kinect v1, you may want to increase maximum depth of the odometry and the 3D cloud reconstruction. Open Preferences, then look for the corresponding parameters under Odometry panel ("Maximum features depth") and "3D Rendering" panel ("3D cloud maximum depth").
• Added multi-camera support (only used by rtabmap_ros, see demo_two_kinects.launch).
• Preferences dialog
  • Some refactoring of the Source panel and for choice of motion estimation approach: 3D->3D and 3D->2D (PnP).
  • Added stereo mapping from a dataset of images/video.
  • Calibration of the RGB-only devices (USB Webcam).
• Main window / rtabmapviz
  • Labels are shown in the 3D Map. If you don't want to see them, uncheck the related parameter in Preferences dialog under 3D Rendering panel.
  • Labels can be added from the Detection -> "Label current location..." action.
  • Added easy access button to refresh the map (re-download all clouds to the GUI).
  • Added "Window" -> "Default views" action.
• Increased global planning performance
• Added OpenCV 3 support
• C++ Library
  • Some refactoring of the Camera classes.

v0.8.12

New ROS binary release for hydro/indigo/jade.

v0.8.10

New features

• New workflow directly from the menu bar: New/Open database -> Choose sensor -> Start mapping!
• Added camera calibration for stereo (left/right) and RGB-D (rgb/ir) sensors
• New sensor drivers: Bumblebee2 (libdc1394,FlyCapture), Kinect v2 (libfreenect2)
• Path planning (ROS-only)
• PnP pose estimation option for odometry
• Tracked features by odometry are shown in Odometry view.
• New options added to DatabaseViewer (also known as the "Tools-> Edit database..." dialog)
• Improved stability/performance

Useful links

• Main page
• Installation
• Tutorials
• ROS wiki

v0.8.3

• Increased stability, GUI performance, and fixed some minor bugs
• GUI context menu settings can now be saved
• ROS: path planning (A*), added memory retrieval based on path planned
• New Windows binaries:
  • RTABMap-0.8.3-win64.zip (33 MB)
  • RTABMap-0.8.3-win64.exe (24 MB)

v0.8.2

Fix for catkin binary release error on system which supports multiarch paths (setting CMAKE_INSTAL_LIBDIR to "lib" by default instead of multiarch path)