Rise of C++ std::mdspan - Lecture 2

Explore the capabilities of C++23's std::mdspan in this CppCon 2024 talk by Griswald Brooks. Learn how this multi-dimensional view type expands beyond std::span and std::string_view by removing restrictions on contiguous memory blocks. Discover practical applications in robotics including RGB/depth images and occupancy grids for navigation. The presentation demonstrates the flexibility of layout and accessor policy customization points through various examples, including a robot arm inventorying beer bottles. Brooks covers conventional robotics use cases like occupancy grids for obstacle detection and collision checking, camera image handling after deep learning inference, and commanding robot arms using synchronous and asynchronous strategies via std::mdspan accessor policy and std::future. While showcasing speculative applications, the talk highlights the extensibility of this data structure for innovative implementations in C++ programming.