# \[SLAM\] New 3D LiDAR odometry, mapping and localization packages

**URL:** <https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364>\
**Category:** ROS General\
**Tags:** slam, lidar\
**Created:** [August 28, 2024, 2:43pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364 "2024-08-28T14:43:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jlblancoc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/jlblancoc/32/4731_2.png) [@jlblancoc](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/jlblancoc)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2024, 2:43pm UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364/1 "2024-08-28T14:43:02Z")

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Hi friends!

Today, all active ROS 2 distributions finally ship the brand-new `mola_lidar_odometry` package, featuring **3D LiDAR** odometry & mapping from either, the most “famous” datasets (KITTI, MulRan,…) or **your own ROS bags** or a **live robot**. It can be run via a CLI, a custom GUI, or from RViz or FoxGlove.

That is just one package from an “ecosystem” of C++ libraries, ROS packages, and CLI and GUI tools, part of an attempt to “change the mindset” towards using view-based maps (dubbed `simple-maps` in our framework), which can then be used to generate metric maps of different types, filter them, etc. with pipelines defined as YAML files ( **no coding needed at all!** ). The core insight is: the same “simple map” should be used to generate different metric representations depending on the desired robotic task: navigation, manipulation, perception, and so on.

The LiDAR odometry algorithm itself can be fully reconfigured via a YAML file too, and extended via a plugins mechanism to define new metric map types, raw sensory data matching algorithms, etc.

This video summarizes some results and features of the project:

[![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/ros/original/3X/e/2/e24fcf2710f8cb7bbd91c57f91346e7974684041.jpeg "MOLA LiDAR odometry ROS packages - introduction 2024") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkffDE9CUHg)

Interested users should probably head to:

- The official project documentation website, which includes a **step-by-step tutorial for building your first 3D map** : [MOLA — MOLA v1.9.1 documentation](https://docs.mola-slam.org/latest/)
- The ArXiV preprint with all the conceptual details and experimental benchmarks: [[2407.20465] A flexible framework for accurate LiDAR odometry, map manipulation, and localization](https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.20465)
- The “core” MOLA GitHub repo: [GitHub - MOLAorg/mola: A Modular Optimization framework for Localization and mApping (MOLA)](https://github.com/MOLAorg/mola)

I’m thriving to see what feedback the ROS community gives about all these tools. Feel free of opening issues and/or pull requests in the project repos, and share your successes (or issues!) trying it with your own robotic projects! 🔥🔥

Of course, it’s an ongoing project and new features are planned for the short term, so stay tuned for more news.

JL

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**Author:** ![ubicray](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/ubicray/32/22626_2.png) [@ubicray](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/ubicray)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2024, 8:13am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364/2 "2024-08-29T08:13:37Z")

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Hey! Great work, looks exciting.  
Any chance there’s a plan to support Noetic at some point?

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**Author:** ![jlblancoc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/jlblancoc/32/4731_2.png) [@jlblancoc](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/jlblancoc)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2024, 11:19am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364/3 "2024-08-29T11:19:30Z")

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Hi! To be honest, at the beginning of the project I expected nobody would care about ROS 1 by this date… but that’s clearly not the case.  
Roughly 90% of the project codebase is already on Noetic (mrpt\_lib\* packages, mp2p\_icp, mola\_common).

The rest would require some thinking, specially because I hate maintaining different git branches for different distros, but there must be a way.

So, yes, it might be possible to backport it to ROS 1 at some point.

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**Author:** ![Aziq\_Azizi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.openrobotics.org/aziq_azizi/32/25628_2.png) [@Aziq\_Azizi](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/u/Aziq_Azizi)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2025, 7:13am UTC](https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/slam-new-3d-lidar-odometry-mapping-and-localization-packages/39364/4 "2025-06-09T07:13:59Z")

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i have question…why my lidar on turtlebot3 is just a moment run after that its stop?