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3D World Building Software Capability for First Responder Robots

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have begun developing a '3D World Model Building' software capability for first responder robots. The system illustrates the use of 3D visualization to improve situational awareness in critical situations. It provides users with an immersive, texture-rich 3D model of their environment in minutes using a laptop and color and depth camera. The Sandia software integrates a number of sensors, one being a LIDAR sensor. Sensor data, together with the robot's GPS location and satellite map images from Google Maps, is used to create a working model of the area of investigation.