Doomba transforms your Roomba's mapping data into Doom levels

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Games with a DIY slant have been big business as of late and technically, Doomba is an extension of that concept. It's probably not something you'll spend a wealth of time tinkering with but if you've got some time to kill over New Years and happen to love Doom, it may be worth looking into.

Have you always thought your home’s layout would make the perfect first-person shooter map? Perhaps you’ve even put the theory to the test with something like laser tag or Nerf guns but I’m willing to bet you’ve never taken it as far as Rich Whitehouse.

Using a modified version of a game development tool called Noesis, Whitehouse created Doomba – a module that takes the digital map data of your home generated by a Roomba robotic vacuum and converts it into Doom levels.

As you may know, most modern Roombas map your home’s layout to boost cleaning efficiency (and a few other things). It’s this collected data that Whitehouse used to create the virtual map highlighted in his post.

DOOMBA: Turn your Roomba's Clean Maps into DOOM maps! https://t.co/FEgu03Nx5u #doom #DOOM25 @romero @ID_AA_Carmack pic.twitter.com/OmDL2CJuXw

— Rich Whitehouse (@DickWhitehouse) December 24, 2018

Doomba has only been tested with a Roomba 980 although in theory, it should work with other devices. Best yet, you don’t even need a Roomba to generate fun maps. Using the “Image to NoeRoomba” function, you can generate maps from plain image files (making a map out of the Mortal Kombat logo, for example).

Those interested in trying it out will need to grab the latest version of Noesis and follow Whitehead's instructions on his blog.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78005-doomba-transforms-roomba-mapping-data-doom-levels.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I wonder if Carmack envisioned his shooter game getting levels made for it via wireless robot vaccum cleaners three decades after the game was released.

 

[mbrowne5061]

This method will likely only work on 900-series and above Roomba models. The 800 series and older use completely different mapping and navigation algorithms, and have a different sensor package. The older models estimate total floor area, and then estimate percentage of that area that has been cleaned. The new 900 series models directly measure floor area, plus its location within that floor area.