ORB-SLAM3 Installation and Monocular Usage Example

Installing ORB-SLAM3 in 2025

This was tested on Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS in June 2025.

install dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install cmake git libgtk2.0-dev pkg-config libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev
sudo apt-get install python-dev python-numpy libtbb2 libtbb-dev libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libtiff-dev libdc1394-22-dev libjasper-dev
sudo apt-get install libglew-dev libboost-all-dev libssl-dev
sudo apt install libepoxy-dev
sudo apt install libeigen3-dev

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build OpenCV 4.6.0

1. Download the Opencv4.6.0 release from Release OpenCV 4.6.0 · opencv/opencv · GitHub (scroll down to Source code.zip file and download the file opencv-4.6.0.zip)

2. Unzip the Source code.zip (opencv-4.6.0.zip) at your home directory
   Avoid unzipping to a different directory than your home directory.

3. cd opencv (#get inside the opencv folder)
   mkdir build/
cd build/
cmake -S .. -B . (#run cmake using its source (i.e. CMakeLists.txt which is located in the opencv dir, and building in the build dir which you are in). Note: don't use any flags/switches running the cmake command. Just run its most plain version. I found that the job gets done this way. If anything goes wrong, then:
   cd .. rm -rf build/ (# remove the build/ dir)
   and go to step 3) above.

4. Now build (i.e. compile) the source of opencv.
   make

5. Install the library (where all header files and libraries are taken to their destination as a final step)
   sudo make install (# you need sudo here because you are writing root privileged directories)

source: OpenCV 4.6.0 does not compile on Linux Ubuntu 22.04 · Issue #22646 · opencv/opencv · GitHub

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build Pangolin

mkdir Dev
cd ~/Dev
git clone https://github.com/stevenlovegrove/Pangolin.git
cd Pangolin 
mkdir build 
cd build 
cmake .. -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release 
make -j 1 
sudo make install

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ORB-SLAM 3

source

cd ~/Dev
git clone https://github.com/UZ-SLAMLab/ORB_SLAM3.git 
cd ORB_SLAM3
sed -i 's/++11/++14/g' CMakeLists.txt

Now Simply just run (if you encounter compiler, try to run the this shell script 2 or 3 more time. It works for me.)

./build.sh

to install

Create a dataset from a monocular Video

Run prepare_dataset.py with your videopath.

For Example:

python3 prepare_dataset.py Videos/Video1.mpg

A dataset folder will be created, you can rename it to how you want your dataset to be called. You need to put in a camera.yaml file, the one provided here ist for example for an iphone 13 pro.

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Run ORB-SLAM3

Copy run_orbslam.sh into your working dir: cd ~ and run it with ./run_orbslam.sh There will be no live preview, it will only output 2 .txt files in your Working dir, which you can visualize with display_camera_path.py. You need to put in the paths of those two files into the python script.