# ObVi-SLAM: Long-Term Object-Visual SLAM

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15268 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15268/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Sep 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [DROID-SLAM: Deep Visual SLAM for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10869/) (2021)
- [CubeSLAM: Monocular 3D Object SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00557/) (2018)
- [QuadricSLAM: Dual Quadrics from Object Detections as Landmarks in Object-oriented SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04011/) (2018)
- [Volumetric Instance-Aware Semantic Mapping and 3D Object Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.00268/) (2019)
- [DynaSLAM II: Tightly-Coupled Multi-Object Tracking and SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07820/) (2020)
- [Panoptic Multi-TSDFs: a Flexible Representation for Online Multi-resolution Volumetric Mapping and Long-term Dynamic Scene Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.10165/) (2021)
- [EAO-SLAM: Monocular Semi-Dense Object SLAM Based on Ensemble Data Association](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.12730/) (2020)
- [maplab: An Open Framework for Research in Visual-inertial Mapping and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10250/) (2017)
- [SO-SLAM: Semantic Object SLAM with Scale Proportional and Symmetrical Texture Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04884/) (2021)
- [Real-Time Monocular Object-Model Aware Sparse SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09149/) (2018)
- [OA-SLAM: Leveraging Objects for Camera Relocalization in Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.08338/) (2022)
- [DOT: Dynamic Object Tracking for Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.00052/) (2020)
- [Long-Term Localization using Semantic Cues in Floor Plan Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01456/) (2022)
- [POCD: Probabilistic Object-Level Change Detection and Volumetric Mapping in Semi-Static Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.01202/) (2022)
- [Same Features, Different Day: Weakly Supervised Feature Learning for Seasonal Invariance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13431/) (2020)
- [Keeping an Eye on Things: Deep Learned Features for Long-Term Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04041/) (2021)
- [A General Framework for Lifelong Localization and Mapping in Changing Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.10946/) (2021)
- [Curating Long-term Vector Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15736/) (2020)
- [Scale Estimation with Dual Quadrics for Monocular Object SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.04816/) (2022)
- [Self-Supervised Feature Learning for Long-Term Metric Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00122/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [LiftFeat: 3D Geometry-Aware Local Feature Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03422/) (2025)
- [MASt3R-Fusion: Integrating Feed-Forward Visual Model with IMU, GNSS for High-Functionality SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20757/) (2025)
- [Semantic Enhancement for Object SLAM with Heterogeneous Multimodal Large Language Model Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06752/) (2024)
- [CLOVER: Context-aware Long-term Object Viewpoint- and Environment- Invariant Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09718/) (2024)
- [Build Once, Monitor Continuously: Persistent Semantic Mapping via Autonomous Exploration and Open-Vocabulary Object Updates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.15493/) (2024)
- [SF-Loc: A Visual Mapping and Geo-Localization System based on Sparse Visual Structure Frames](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01500/) (2024)
- [Why Not Replace? Sustaining Long-Term Visual Localization via Handcrafted-Learned Feature Collaboration on CPU](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18652/) (2025)
- [Long-Term Multi-Session 3D Reconstruction Under Substantial Appearance Change](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20584/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Robots responsible for tasks over long time scales must be able to localize consistently and scalably amid geometric, viewpoint, and appearance changes. Existing visual SLAM approaches rely on low-level feature descriptors that are not robust to such environmental changes and result in large map sizes that scale poorly over long-term deployments. In contrast, object detections are robust to environmental variations and lead to more compact representations, but most object-based SLAM systems target short-term indoor deployments with close objects. In this paper, we introduce ObVi-SLAM to overcome these challenges by leveraging the best of both approaches. ObVi-SLAM uses low-level visual features for high-quality short-term visual odometry; and to ensure global, long-term consistency, ObVi-SLAM builds an uncertainty-aware long-term map of persistent objects and updates it after every deployment. By evaluating ObVi-SLAM on data from 16 deployment sessions spanning different weather and lighting conditions, we empirically show that ObVi-SLAM generates accurate localization estimates consistent over long-time scales in spite of varying appearance conditions.