Re: RTAB map VS Photogrammetry

Posted by matlabbe on
URL: http://official-rtab-map-forum.206.s1.nabble.com/RTAB-map-VS-Photogrammetry-tp7023p7048.html

Hi,

RTAB-Map is not a monocular SLAM approach, it does RGB-D, Stereo or LiDAR SLAM.

Given an area/object with a lot of discriminative textures and high-res imagery, photogrammetry will give pretty close result to LiDAR, up to a scale factor. The process is often done offline, taking pictures approximately and hoping that photogrammetry approach will find enough correspondences. With experience, you can know how to take good pictures to improve results.

SLAM approaches are more often online, you can get a live feedback of the scanning. It is easier to see what is scanned so far. If you scan indoor, it may also be easier to get better results with a RGB-D camera or a LiDAR (which RTAB-Map supports) to "see" textureless surfaces like white walls.

You may search keywords like Photogrammetry, structure from motion and visual SLAM comparison.

cheers,
Mathieu