use of rtabmap with 3D lidars

Question

I need to scan and get an accurate 3D model of a small building and its surroundings (trees, etc.). I plan on mounting my sensors on a small drone and fly around the building to scan it. The resolution should be good enough to see details like pipes, chimneys, conduits, etc. My main question is whether rtabmap can be used to achieve it. My second questions is what is the best sensor setup to use with rtabmap to achieve this goal. I have a 3D LiDAR unit (Velodyne VLP-16). Can it be used by RTAB to produce a 3D model? Do I need any additional sensors and why? I can use velodyne_pointcloud node to get sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 point clouds from the lidar. Can rtabmap be used to produce an accurate 3D model from them? Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Originally posted by chukcha2 on ROS Answers with karma: 89 on 2016-02-17

Post score: 0

Answer 1

rtabmap relies on detecting features on image data, so it is not really suitable for use with 3D LIDAR data. You could of course mount a stereo or RGB-D camera on your drone and generate a state estimate from that.

Note that your plans are pretty ambitious and generating highly detailed 3D models of buildings using a small drone with somewhat acceptable reliability and accuracy is an application that requires significant effort. You might want to plan for some smaller intermediate goals :)

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Originally posted by Stefan Kohlbrecher with karma: 24361 on 2016-02-17

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 5

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Original comments

Comment by chukcha2 on 2016-02-23:
Thank you Stefan. I have no experience in this field and your advice is very appreciated. Could you elaborate what makes this task ambitious?