OpenNavMap: Structure-Free Topometric Mapping via Large-Scale Collaborative Localization

TL;DR

OpenNavMap introduces a scalable, structure-free topometric mapping system that leverages large-scale geometric models for robust, efficient multi-session localization and navigation without pre-built 3D models.

Contribution

It presents a novel lightweight, structure-free approach for large-scale collaborative localization using geometric foundation models, improving accuracy and robustness over traditional methods.

Findings

Achieves 0.62m average translation error on benchmark

Maintains global consistency over 15km multi-session data

Successfully completes 12 autonomous navigation tasks

Abstract

Scalable and maintainable map representations are fundamental to enabling large-scale visual navigation and facilitating the deployment of robots in real-world environments. While collaborative localization across multi-session mapping enhances efficiency, traditional structure-based methods struggle with high maintenance costs and fail in feature-less environments or under significant viewpoint changes typical of crowd-sourced data. To address this, we propose OPENNAVMAP, a lightweight, structure-free topometric system leveraging 3D geometric foundation models for on-demand reconstruction. Our method unifies dynamic programming-based sequence matching, geometric verification, and confidence-calibrated optimization to robust, coarse-to-fine submap alignment without requiring pre-built 3D models. Evaluations on the Map-Free benchmark demonstrate superior accuracy over structure-from-motion and regression baselines, achieving an average translation error of 0.62m. Furthermore, the system maintains global consistency across 15km of multi-session data with an absolute trajectory error below 3m for map merging. Finally, we validate practical utility through 12 successful autonomous image-goal navigation tasks on simulated and physical robots. Code and datasets will be publicly available in https://rpl-cs-ucl.github.io/OpenNavMap_page.