RMAP: A rectangular cuboid approximation framework for 3D environment mapping

This paper presents a rectangular cuboid approximation framework (RMAP) for 3D mapping. The goal of RMAP is to provide computational and memory efficient environment representations for 3D robotic mapping using axis aligned rectangular cuboids (RC). This paper focuses on two aspects of the RMAP framework: (i) An occupancy grid approach and (ii) A RC approximation of 3D environments based on point cloud density. The RMAP occupancy grid is based on the Rtree data structure which is composed of a hierarchy of RC. The proposed approach is capable of generating probabilistic 3D representations with multiresolution capabilities. It reduces the memory complexity in large scale 3D occupancy grids by avoiding explicit modelling of free space. In contrast to point cloud and fixed resolution cell representations based on beam end point observations, an approximation approach using point cloud density is presented. The proposed approach generates variable sized RC approximations that are memory efficient for axis aligned surfaces. Evaluation of the RMAP occupancy grid and approximation approach based on computational and memory complexity on different datasets shows the effectiveness of this framework for 3D mapping.