Building a 3-D Line-Based Map Using Stereo SLAM

This paper presents a graph-based visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system using straight lines as features. Compared with point features, lines provide far richer information about the structure of the environment and make it possible to infer spatial semantics from the map. Using a stereo rig as the sole sensor, our proposed system utilizes many advanced techniques, such as motion estimation, pose optimization, and bundle adjustment. We use two different representations to parameterize 3-D lines in this paper: Plucker line coordinates for efficient initialization of newly observed line features and projection of 3-D lines, and orthonormal representation for graph optimization. The proposed system is tested with indoor and outdoor sequences, and it exhibits better reconstruction performance against a point-based SLAM system in line-rich environments.This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Editor M. Kaess and Editor D. Fox upon evaluation of the reviewers' comments. This work was supported by the Industrial Strategic Technology Development Program (10044009) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea (90%) and by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education (2014R1A1A2058501) (10%). (G. Zhang and J. H. Lee equally contributed to this work. Corresponding author: Il Hong Suh.