This Roomba can create its own Doom levels

ID Software's original Doom will always hold a special place in my heart. I first began playing it when I received an advance copy of it while working at a local Seattle software store in 1993. While by today's standards many might think that the game's graphics and limited range of movement are dated, I still find it fun to play.

I've never owned a Roomba robotic vacuum, they are out of my price range and I don't mind pushing a non-robotic vacuum around for a few minutes to clean carpets/floor. I also know a lady who told me the story of how her Roomba became a, "travelling poop air freshener", when her Roomba scooped up a pile of doo that one of her dogs left and then proceeded to bring the aromatic benefits of the pile to each room while it followed its automatic cleaning path.

A talented software engineer has combined these two things, Doom and Roomba, to make some evil magic:

Game developer and designer Rich Whitehouse gave the world an unusual present this Christmas Eve. It’s called Doomba, and it uses the popular Roomba vacuuming robots to create levels for Doom, the classic first-person shooter. Whitehouse is a 20-year veteran of the game industry, with credits on titles such as the original Prey and Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Along the way, he also built a tool called Neosis, which helps game developers and designers move digital assets between different platforms. The Doomba module works on similar principles; it just takes the digital maps created by the Roomba’s own internal software and converts them into Doom levels. So what’s your Roomba doing creating maps of the inside of your house? Many of iRobot’s modern robotic vacuums rely on VSLAM, also known as visual simultaneous localization and mapping. Rather than wandering around like slow-moving ping-pong balls, modern Roomba devices methodically sweep back and forth in long passes like they’re mowing your lawn. That makes them much more efficient than previous models. To do the work, some Roombas use a creepy little electronic eyeball to create detailed maps of your home. Doomba takes that map and makes it into a level of Hell.

“I soon realized that there was a clear opportunity to serve the Dark Lord by conceiving a plethora of unholy algorithms in service to one of the finest works ever created in his name,” Whitehouse writes on his personal blog. “Simultaneously, I would be able to unleash a truly terrible pun to plague humankind. Now, the fruit of my labor is born. I bring forth DOOMBA, a half-goat, half-script creature, with native binary backing for the expensive parts, to be offered in place of my firstborn on this fine Christmas Eve.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

a reply to: seattlerat

Love it.. I created levels for doom, heretic and hexen back in the days, using DCK. Doom construction kit.
I spent alot of time on that. Ohh and I became danish doom champion in 1998.

But I got to have me a DOOMBA

a reply to: AsheerRaza

Have you tried Fallout New Vegas? I've been playing it for a couple of months and am nearly through the last DLC, but still haven't completed about 1/2 of the possible quests. It is a great game!