Is it possible to use cheap, RGB cameras for RTAB-Map?

[gnaw]

For experimentation I tried to use a cheap, dual RGB camera to use with RTAB-Map with visual odometry.
I calibrated the camera and used approximate sync for the images, but the results are not satisfying. There is a lot of noise and the features being captured jump around too much from frame to frame.

Here is a quick map that I made:
There are many noisy points, and everything seems somewhat distorted or mislocated.
I'm wondering if anyone has tried something similar, to see if my low quality is the result of the low quality camera, or if I'm forgetting to tune some parameters related to RTAB-Map?

I'm following this tutorial
http://wiki.ros.org/rtabmap_ros/Tutorials/StereoHandHeldMapping
And using some code from the 2.7 Stereo B section here
http://wiki.ros.org/rtabmap_ros/Tutorials/SetupOnYourRobot

Thanks!

[matlabbe]

Hi,

Approximate sync is quite bad for stereo VSLAM. The best is a stereo camera with hardware synchronization between the two cameras. You may look for a ZED camera. It may be also possible with two synchronized GoPros.

Another point is a good calibration of the cameras will help too.

It seems also that you are indoor, point clouds from indoor environments are not quite good with a stereo camera. I recommend to use an RGB-D camera indoor. In the Stereo mapping tutorial, it is indoor but the floor has much visual texture, which help the disparity approach to triangulate good point clouds on the ground. Well, outdoor, it is where the stereo cameras work the better: http://wiki.ros.org/rtabmap_ros/Tutorials/StereoOutdoorMapping

cheers