ER-Mapping: An extrinsic robust coloured mapping system using residual evaluation and selection

The colour-enhanced point cloud map is increasingly being employed in fields such as robotics, 3D reconstruction and virtual reality. The authors propose ER-Mapping (Extrinsic Robust coloured Mapping system using residual evaluation and selection). ER-Mapping consists of two components: the simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) subsystem and the colouring subsystem. The SLAM subsystem reconstructs the geometric structure, where it employs a dynamic threshold-based residual selection in LiDAR-inertial odometry to improve mapping accuracy. On the other hand, the colouring subsystem focuses on recovering texture information from input images and innovatively utilises 3D–2D feature selection and optimisation methods, eliminating the need for strict hardware time synchronisation and highly accurate extrinsic parameters. Experiments were conducted in both indoor and outdoor environments. The results demonstrate that our system can enhance accuracy, reduce computational costs and achieve extrinsic robustness.