# FutureMapping: The Computational Structure of Spatial AI Systems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.11288 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.11288/

## Key facts

- Cited by 36 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 29 Mar 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Kimera: from SLAM to Spatial Perception with 3D Dynamic Scene Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.06894/) (2021)
- [Event-aided Direct Sparse Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.07640/) (2022)
- [Where is your place, Visual Place Recognition?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06443/) (2021)
- [Semantics for Robotic Mapping, Perception and Interaction: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00443/) (2021)
- [Kimera-Multi: Robust, Distributed, Dense Metric-Semantic SLAM for Multi-Robot Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14386/) (2021)
- [Active Neural Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16246/) (2023)
- [Neural feels with neural fields: Visuo-tactile perception for in-hand manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13469/) (2023)
- [Trust, but Verify: Cross-Modality Fusion for HD Map Change Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.07312/) (2022)
- [UnrealZoo: Enriching Photo-realistic Virtual Worlds for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20977/) (2024)
- [Deep Multi-Task Learning for Joint Localization, Perception, and Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.06720/) (2021)
- [Multi-Event-Camera Depth Estimation and Outlier Rejection by Refocused Events Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10494/) (2022)
- [Advances in Inference and Representation for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05041/) (2021)
- [An Object SLAM Framework for Association, Mapping, and High-Level Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07299/) (2023)
- [Language-EXtended Indoor SLAM (LEXIS): A Versatile System for Real-time Visual Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15065/) (2023)
- [A visual introduction to Gaussian Belief Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.02308/) (2021)
- [The Bare Necessities: Designing Simple, Effective Open-Vocabulary Scene Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01539/) (2024)
- [Ov3R: Open-Vocabulary Semantic 3D Reconstruction from RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.22052/) (2025)
- [360-DFPE: Leveraging Monocular 360-Layouts for Direct Floor Plan Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06180/) (2021)
- [TextSLAM: Visual SLAM with Semantic Planar Text Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10029/) (2023)
- [SIRI-Bench: Challenging VLMs' Spatial Intelligence through Complex Reasoning Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14512/) (2025)
- [CausNVS: Autoregressive Multi-view Diffusion for Flexible 3D Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.06579/) (2025)
- [Localization and Mapping using Instance-specific Mesh Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04493/) (2021)
- [OpenMonoGS-SLAM: Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM with Open-set Semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08625/) (2025)
- [Accurate Instance-Level CAD Model Retrieval in a Large-Scale Database](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01339/) (2022)
- [Online Learning of a Probabilistic and Adaptive Scene Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16832/) (2021)
- [A pipeline for multiple orange detection and tracking with 3-D fruit relocalization and neural-net based yield regression in commercial citrus orchards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.16724/) (2023)
- [Look Ma, No Ground Truth! Ground-Truth-Free Tuning of Structure from Motion and Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01116/) (2024)
- [OpenLex3D: A Tiered Evaluation Benchmark for Open-Vocabulary 3D Scene Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19764/) (2025)
- [AgriGS-SLAM: Orchard Mapping Across Seasons via Multi-View Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.26358/) (2025)
- [Training-free Spatially Grounded Geometric Shape Encoding (Technical Report)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07522/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We discuss and predict the evolution of Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) into a general geometric and semantic `Spatial AI' perception capability for intelligent embodied devices. A big gap remains between the visual perception performance that devices such as augmented reality eyewear or comsumer robots will require and what is possible within the constraints imposed by real products. Co-design of algorithms, processors and sensors will be needed. We explore the computational structure of current and future Spatial AI algorithms and consider this within the landscape of ongoing hardware developments.