# Cartographer

Cartographer is a system that provides real-time simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in 2D and 3D across multiple platforms and sensor configurations.

Repository: https://github.com/cartographer-project/cartographer
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cartographer
Language: C++
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: slam, mapping, localization, robotics, self-driving
Last push: 2024-01-05T19:21:01+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3683, "days_push": 971, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7949, forks 2342 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:10.191253+00:00)

## What it is
Cartographer is a C++ library that computes real-time simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in 2D and 3D from sensor streams such as LIDAR, IMU, and odometry, with an official ROS wrapper (cartographer_ros) for robot integration. The original repository is no longer actively maintained, with limited continued support handled through the ROS fork at ros2/cartographer.

## Use cases
- real-time slam for a mobile robot
- build a 2d occupancy grid map from lidar scans
- 3d mapping from lidar and imu data
- localize a robot on a previously built map
- ros slam node for a laser scanner
- fuse odometry, imu, and lidar for pose estimation
- map an indoor environment in 3d

## When to choose
- You need real-time 2D or 3D SLAM from LIDAR, IMU, and odometry within a ROS-based robot stack
- You want a mature, well-documented SLAM system under a permissive Apache-2.0 license
- You are on ROS 1/ROS 2 and can use the maintained fork's binary packages

## When to avoid
- You need active upstream development, new features, or timely issue support - the project explicitly states it is no longer actively maintained
- You primarily need camera/visual SLAM rather than Cartographer's LIDAR-centric mapping
- You want a standalone GUI application instead of a C++ library and ROS nodes you integrate yourself

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: robotics
- domain: robotics, autonomous-vehicles
- platform: cpp, embedded
- tags: slam, lidar, mapping, localization, ros, sensor-fusion, odometry, imu, point-clouds, 2d-slam, 3d-slam, occupancy-grid, linux

## Member repositories
- cartographer-project/cartographer (main) score 23
- cartographer-project/cartographer_ros (plugin) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:10.191253+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:33:12.259613+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cartographer-project/cartographer (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:10.191253+00:00, sha 3a255818df58)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.