implement Google's Open Source Slam "Cartographer" demos in ROS/rviz

Cartographer is a backpack equipped with Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) technology.

1. Platform

Dell PC installed Ubuntu 14.4 and ROS Indigo.

2. Building & Installation

We recommend using wstool and rosdep. For faster builds, we also recommend using Ninja.

# Install wstool and rosdep.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y python-wstool python-rosdep ninja-build
 
# Create a new workspace in 'catkin_ws'.
mkdir catkin_ws
cd catkin_ws
wstool init src
 
# Merge the cartographer_ros.rosinstall file and fetch code for dependencies.
wstool merge -t src https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googlecartographer/cartographer_ros/master/cartographer_ros.rosinstall
wstool update -t src
 
# Install deb dependencies.
rosdep init
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=${ROS_DISTRO} -y
 
# Build and install.
catkin_make_isolated --install --use-ninja
source install_isolated/setup.bash

3. Running the demos

Now that Cartographer and Cartographer’s ROS integration are installed, download the example bags (e.g. 2D and 3D backpack collections of the Deutsches Museum) to a known location, in this case ~/Downloads, and use roslaunch to bring up the demo:

# Download the 2D backpack example bag.
wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/backpack_2d/cartographer_paper_deutsches_museum.bag
 
# Launch the 2D backpack demo.
roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_backpack_2d.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/cartographer_paper_deutsches_museum.bag
 
# Download the 3D backpack example bag.
wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/backpack_3d/cartographer_3d_deutsches_museum.bag
 
# Launch the 3D backpack demo.
roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_backpack_3d.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/cartographer_3d_deutsches_museum.bag
 
# Download the Revo LDS example bag.
wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/revo_lds/cartographer_paper_revo_lds.bag
 
# Launch the Revo LDS demo. ---- Failed to implement this one.
roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_revo_lds.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/cartographer_paper_revo_lds.bag
 
# Download the PR2 example bag.
wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/pr2/2011-09-15-08-32-46.bag
 
# Launch the PR2 demo.
roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_pr2.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/2011-09-15-08-32-46.bag

The launch files will bring up roscore and rviz automatically.

4. Results

2D backpack demo:

3D backpack demo:

Revo LDS demo:

Failed

PR2 demo:

Reference:

Google Cartographer ROS | Read the Docs