RoboEarth's First Open Source Release

We are happy to announce RoboEarth's first open source software release. This release allows you to create 3D object models and upload them to RoboEarth. It also allows you to download any model stored in RoboEarth and detect the described object using a Kinect or a webcam.

If you are familiar with ROS, creating and using object models is easy. As shown in the video tutorial above, it uses three main packages:

• RoboEarth's re_object_recorder package allows you to create your own 3D object model using Microsoft's Kinect sensor. By recording and merging point clouds gathered from different angles around the object, a detailed model is created, which may be shared with the world by uploading it to RoboEarth.
• RoboEarth's re_kinect_object_detector package allows you to detect models you download from RoboEarth using a Kinect.
• Alternatively, you may also use RoboEarth's re_vision package to detect objects using a common RGB camera.

A complete overview of the process can be found at http://www.ros.org/wiki/roboearth
RoboEarth aims at creating an object database including semantic descriptors. Semantic descriptors allow robots to not only detect objects, but reason about them. For example, if a robot is asked to serve a drink, semantic object descriptors allow the robot to determine if all required objects are available or if an additional object model is missing, and if a missing model is available via RoboEarth. You can help us with that process by supplying meaningful names and descriptions for the objects you create.

We are looking forward to your feedback in the comments below or at info at roboearth.org.