The map is fully dense. No feature extraction is done on the LIDAR data.

The Revo LDS and similar LIDARs are relatively cheap. The cartographer_turtlebot repo also has a configuration for mapping in 2D and 3D with depth cameras (e.g. Kinect).

There is support for odometry. Take a look at the TurtleBot examples.

ah, it's in the dynamically loaded config file. That should be perfect then.

You could try following the ROS News blog. Lots of new research comes with a ROS implementation.

I suggest installing ROS. Once you have it installed, you can follow the documentation in the cartographer_ros repo to get some demos running.

That's correct. The operator carried the backup up/down a stairwell.