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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

It might be a common term but I don't think it's the common term here.

I work at a robotics company, so we've had a perception team that manages robot localization since forever, and now that we're also internationalizing our product, there's a separate frontend team dealing with third-party localization firms to create the needed translations. :)

Yeah, _localize_ has always meant to adapt something to its location, when I've seen it used. _Locate_ means to determine the location.

Edit to add: But I can see how in a specialized field, where methods for locating an object are frequently discussed, using localization over location would be useful for describing the process of finding something, since location is also a noun referring to the place itself.

Well and in the specific context of SLAM, the business of localizing is itself an adaptive and constructive process. "Locating" is what the user does when they simply tell the robot where it is on the map. Localization is building a continuous graph of your immediate surroundings and past movement history and fitting that to what is known about the environment.

I totally hear that. Especially if people are commenting that they were thrown off. I just wanted to make sure people knew to use this term if you're looking to learn more about the topic of this project. If anyone is looking to implement this or another method to do indoor mapping, you'll probably want to familiarize yourself with the research field of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping or SLAM.

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