CarMap-Fast 3D Feature Map Updates for Automobiles

Features:

1. CarMap-generated 3D lean map (20x smaller map than ORB-SLAM2)
2. CarMap's dynamic object filter to remove dynamic objects
3. CarMap's semantically annotated 3D map
4. CarMap's position-based robust feature matching
5. CarMap's efficient map update operation
6. CarMap's robust map segment stitching for unmapped regions
7. CarMap-generated 3D map upload/download to the CarMap cloud service
8. Feature map stitching for CarMap generated map

Build Instructions

There are two directories in the repo:

The vehicle client: CarMap_Vehicle_Client

The cloud service: CarMap_Cloud_Service

Both of them have similar dependencies and build instructions

To make your life easier, simply download the CarMap docker using:

docker pull fawadahm/carmap_nvidia

With this, you can skip the text below and move to Configuring CarMap.

Dependencies:

1. Run the build_carmap.sh script to build the dependencies needed

sh build_carmap.sh

2. Building OpenCV:

git clone https://github.com/opencv/opencv
cd opencv
git checkout 3.4.0
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local ..
make -j7
sudo make install

3. Eigen 3.1.0 or higher

4. Pangolin

git clone https://github.com/stevenlovegrove/Pangolin.git
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j

5. PCL 1.9.0

Configuring CarMap:

1. First build CarMap_Cloud_Service

cd CarMap_Cloud_Service
bash build_dbow.sh
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j

2. Build CarMap_Vehicle_Client

cd CarMap_Vehicle_Client
bash build_dbow.sh
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j

3. Download sample dataset for CarMap_Vehicle_Client:

mkdir CarMap_Dataset && cd CarMap_Dataset

Navigate to the link (https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1eJ4yZGrQXC50Hp4Idie2I3K5XlyR-Eeb) and download the dataset

tar -xz CarMap_Dataset.tar.xz
cd ..

Running CarMap:

1. Run CarMap Cloud Service

cd CarMap_Cloud_Service/build/
./server_stitch
cd ../../

2. Run CarMap_Vehicle_Client

cd CarMap_Vehicle_Client/build/
./main

Instructions for Running CarMap

Both the vehicle client and the cloud service have a Config_File.yaml that dictates the operation mode of CarMap.

CarMap Cloud Service:

In this section, we describe what some of the fields in Config_File.yaml of CarMap Cloud Service are used for:

1. All the ServerStitch.Path* variables are used to feed input and output paths to CarMap
2. OneShotStitching: true for CarMap stitching and false for progressive relocalization
3. ReceiveMaps: true for receiving map segments from a vehicle client and false to stitch two maps from disk
4. CloudServiceIDAddress: this is the ip address of the cloud service (always starts with ip.)
5. CloudServicePort: port address at the cloud service
6. IntegrateDiff: true for map update using diff and false for map update via stitch

CarMap Vehicle Client:

In this section, we describe what some of the fields in Config_File.yaml of CarMap Vehicle Client are used for:

1. OperationMode.OpCode:

   • 0 for a first time mapping session with no pre-loaded map
   • 1 for updating a pre-loaded map
   • 2 for using a pre-loaded map without updating it

2. SaveMap/UpdateMap/LoadMap.StartFrom and StopAt: starting and ending frame numbers of input dataset

3. Path variables are for input and output paths

4. Constants:

   • RunLocalization: false for SLAM and true for running only localization (we use false by default)
   • SaveTrajectory: true for saving trajectory at output path
   • IsStereo: true for stereo camera frames as input
   • OrbVisualization: true to visualize the whole CarMap mapping process

5. Mode:

   • RemoveDynamicObjects: true for using dynamic object filter
   • LoadDepth: true to load depth images from input_dataset/depth/ but false by default because we estimate depth from stereo matching
   • EvaluateSegmentation: true to evaluate segmentation accuracy using ground truth segmented images
   • RobustFeatureSearch: true to enable robust feature matching

6. Online Mode Settings:

   • UploadToCloud: true to upload map segments/diffs to cloud service
   • UploadOnlyDiff: true to upload diff and false to upload whole map segments
   • CloudIPAddress and CloudPort: address of carmap cloud service
   • UploadFrameInterval: number of frames after which to upload map diff/segments to cloud

Citation

@inproceedings {carmap,
  author = {Fawad Ahmad and Hang Qiu and Ray Eells and Fan Bai and Ramesh Govindan},
  title = {{CarMap}: Fast 3D Feature Map Updates for Automobiles },
  booktitle = {17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 20)},
  year = {2020},
  isbn = {978-1-939133-13-7},
  address = {Santa Clara, CA},
  pages = {1063--1081},
  url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi20/presentation/ahmad},
  publisher = {USENIX Association},
  month = feb,
}