Since 2005 we have been working on new techniques for dense localisation and mapping techniques that are "Direct" in the sense that no features are extracted or matched from subsequent images in a time sequence. Some of the recent work on this has involved using RGB-D sensors, both stereo and kinect along with monocular 3D tracking. An invited talk at LDRMC 2011 is available here: comport_LDRMC_talk.pdf This was the First International Workshop on Live Dense Reconstruction from Moving Cameras in conjunction with the ICCV 2011, November 12, Barcelona, Spain. The workshop was highly successful and brought together researchers in robotics and vision to synthesise state-of-the-art theory and practice in live dense reconstruction from moving cameras including passive and active RGB-D devices.
Some videos of this work can be found here:
1. Kinect dense RGB-D SLAM - video
Related publication: Audras, C., Comport, A. I., Meilland, M. & Rives, P (2011). Real-time dense RGB-D localisation and mapping. In Australian Conference on Robotics and Automation. Monash University, Australia.
2. A symmetric dense mapping and localisation using and combining different sensor modalities including stereo, mono and kinect - video
Related publication: Comport, A. I., Meilland, M. & Rives, P (2011). An asymmetric real-time dense visual localisation and mapping system. In First International Workshop on Live Dense Reconstruction from Moving Cameras In conjunction with the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV). Barcelona, Spain.