VSLAM-LAB

A Comprehensive Framework for Visual SLAM Baselines and Datasets

Alejandro Fontan · Tobias Fischer · Nicolas Marticorena · Javier Civera · Michael Milford

VSLAM-LAB is designed to simplify the development, evaluation, and application of Visual SLAM (VSLAM) systems. This framework enables users to compile and configure VSLAM systems, download and process datasets, and design, run, and evaluate experiments — all from a single command line!

Why Use VSLAM-LAB?

• Unified Framework: Streamlines the management of VSLAM systems and datasets.
• Ease of Use: Run experiments with minimal configuration and single command executions.
• Broad Compatibility: Supports a wide range of VSLAM systems and datasets.
• Reproducible Results: Standardized methods for evaluating and analyzing results.

Getting Started

To ensure all dependencies are installed in a reproducible manner, we use the package management tool pixi. If you haven't installed pixi yet, please run the following command in your terminal:

curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | bash

After installation, restart your terminal or source your shell for the changes to take effect. For more details, refer to the pixi documentation.

Clone the repository and navigate to the project directory:

git clone https://github.com/alejandrofontan/VSLAM-LAB.git && cd VSLAM-LAB

Quick Demo

You can now execute any baseline on any sequence from any dataset within VSLAM-LAB using the following command:

pixi run demo <baseline> <dataset> <sequence>

For a full list of available systems and datasets, see the VSLAM-LAB Supported Baselines and Datasets. Example commands:

pixi run demo mast3rslam eth table_3
pixi run demo droidslam euroc MH_01_easy
pixi run demo orbslam2 rgbdtum rgbd_dataset_freiburg1_xyz
pixi run demo dpvo 7scenes chess_seq-01
pixi run demo monogs hamlyn rectified01

To change the paths where VSLAM-LAB-Benchmark or/and VSLAM-LAB-Evaluation data are stored (for example, to /media/${USER}/data), use the following commands:

pixi run set-benchmark-path /media/${USER}/data
pixi run set-evaluation-path /media/${USER}/data

Configure your own experiments

With VSLAM-LAB, you can easily design and configure experiments using a YAML file and run them with a single command. To run the experiment demo, execute the following command:

ARGUMENT="--exp_yaml exp_demo.yaml" pixi run vslamlab

Experiments in VSLAM-LAB are sequences of entries in a YAML file (see example ~/VSLAM-LAB/configs/exp_demo.yaml):

exp_vslamlab:
  Config: config_demo.yaml     # YAML file containing the sequences to be run 
  NumRuns: 1                   # Maximum number of executions per sequence
  Parameters: {verbose: 1}     # Vector with parameters that will be input to the baseline executable 
  Module: droidslam            # droidslam/monogs/orbslam2/mast3rslam/dpvo/...                    

Config files are YAML files containing the list of sequences to be executed in the experiment (see example ~/VSLAM-LAB/configs/config_demo.yaml):

rgbdtum:
  - 'rgbd_dataset_freiburg1_xyz'
hamlyn:
  - 'rectified01'
7scenes:
  - 'chess_seq-01'
eth:
  - 'table_3'
euroc:
  - 'MH_01_easy'
monotum:
  - 'sequence_01'

For a full list of available VSLAM systems and datasets, refer to the section VSLAM-LAB Supported Baselines and Datasets.

Add a new dataset

Datasets in VSLAM-LAB are stored in a folder named VSLAM-LAB-Benchmark, which is created by default in the same parent directory as VSLAM-LAB. If you want to modify the location of your datasets, change the variable VSLAMLAB_BENCHMARK in ~/VSLAM-LAB/utilities.py.

1. To add a new dataset, structure your dataset as follows:

~/VSLAM-LAB-Benchmark
└── YOUR_DATASET
    └── sequence_01
        ├── rgb
            └── img_01
            └── img_02
            └── ...
        ├── calibration.yaml
        ├── rgb.txt
        └── groundtruth.txt
    └── sequence_02
        ├── ...
    └── ...   

2. Derive a new class dataset_{your_dataset}.py for your dataset from ~/VSLAM-LAB/Datasets/Dataset_vslamlab.py, and create a corresponding YAML configuration file named dataset_{your_dataset}.yaml.

3. Include the call for your dataset in function def get_dataset(...) in ~/VSLAM-LAB/Datasets/get_dataset.py

 from Datasets.dataset_{your_dataset} import {YOUR_DATASET}_dataset
    ...
 def get_dataset(dataset_name, benchmark_path)
    ...
    switcher = {
        "rgbdtum": lambda: RGBDTUM_dataset(benchmark_path),
        ...
        "dataset_{your_dataset}": lambda: {YOUR_DATASET}_dataset(benchmark_path),
    }

Add a new Baseline

pixi.toml

kill_all 

header

dependencies

tasks

  git-clone

  execute

Baselines/get_baseline.py

# ADD your imports here
from Baselines.baseline_droidslam import DROIDSLAM_baseline
from Baselines.baseline_droidslam import DROIDSLAM_baseline_dev
...

def get_baseline(baseline_name):
    baseline_name = baseline_name.lower()
    switcher = {
        # ADD your baselines here
        "droidslam": lambda: DROIDSLAM_baseline(),
        "droidslam-dev": lambda: DROIDSLAM_baseline_dev(),
        ...
    }

    return switcher.get(baseline_name, lambda: "Invalid case")()

License

VSLAM-LAB is released under a LICENSE.txt. For a list of code dependencies which are not property of the authors of VSLAM-LAB, please check docs/Dependencies.md.

Citation

If you're using VSLAM-LAB in your research, please cite. If you're specifically using VSLAM systems or datasets that have been included, please cite those as well. We provide a spreadsheet with citation for each dataset and VSLAM system for your convenience.

@article{fontan2025vslam,
  title={VSLAM-LAB: A Comprehensive Framework for Visual SLAM Methods and Datasets},
  author={Fontan, Alejandro and Fischer, Tobias and Civera, Javier and Milford, Michael},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.04457},
  year={2025}
}

Acknowledgements

To awesome-slam-datasets

VSLAM-LAB Supported Baselines and Datasets

We provide a spreadsheet with more detailed information for each baseline and dataset.

Baselines	System	Sensors	License	Label
MASt3R-SLAM	VSLAM	mono	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0	mast3rslam
DROID-SLAM	VSLAM	mono	BSD-3	droidslam
DPVO	VSLAM	mono	License	dpvo
ORB-SLAM2	VSLAM	mono/RGBD/Stereo	GPLv3	orbslam2
MonoGS	VSLAM	mono/RGBD/Stereo	License	monogs
GLOMAP	SfM	mono	BSD-3	glomap
DUST3R	SfM	mono	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0	dust3r
COLMAP	SfM	mono	BSD	colmap
GenSfM	SfM	mono	BSD	gensfm
DSO	VO	mono	GPLv3	dso
AnyFeature-VSLAM	VSLAM	mono	GPLv3	anyfeature
evo	Eval	-	GPLv3	evo

Datasets	Data	Mode	Label
ETH3D SLAM Benchmarks	real	handheld	eth
RGB-D SLAM Dataset and Benchmark	real	handheld	rgbdtum
ICL-NUIM RGB-D Benchmark Dataset	synthetic	handheld	nuim
Monocular Visual Odometry Dataset	real	handheld	monotum
The KITTI Vision Benchmark Suite	real	vehicle	kitti
RGB-D Dataset 7-Scenes	real	handheld	7scenes
The EuRoC MAV Dataset	real	UAV	euroc
TartanAir: A Dataset to Push the Limits of Visual SLAM	synthetic	handheld	tartanair
The Drunkard's Dataset	synthetic	handheld	drunkards
The Replica Dataset - iMAP	synthetic	handheld	replica
Hamlyn Rectified Dataset	real	handheld	hamlyn
Underwater caves sonar and vision data set	real	underwater	caves
HILTI-OXFORD 2022	real	handheld	hilti2022