We use the slave boson approach to develop the semiclassical large $S$ description of the Rokshar-Kivelson (RK) square lattice quantum dimer model, which allows a $1/S$ expansion. The resulting action reproduces a generalized height representation and we calculate the coefficients of the corresponding low energy effective sine-Gordon model.  We extend these results to the dimer model on the cubic lattice, where we obtain the emergent quantum electrodynamics (QED) description. The estimated speed of light is $c=\frac{S}{3}\sqrt{2\left(J-V\right)J}$ (where J is the kinetic energy term in the RK Hamiltonian and V is the potential term). We also confirm various aspects of the height mapping such as the correlation between the sign of the terms in the height action and the sign of the potential term in the RK Hamiltonian. In dimensions D=2,3 the QED emerges at wave vectors (\pi,\pi) and (\pi,\pi,\pi) respectively, confirming the previous qualitative analysis. Our estimate of the RK parameter is 1/4 which is within a 20 to 30 percent of the exact value of $\frac{\pi}{16}$ (which is known, but only at the RK point).