Masterfully-Built LIDAR Scanner Produces Excellent Scans

If you’ve been following along with technological developments, you’ve certainly heard of LIDAR, a ranging technology that can generate a 3D map of the world using light reflections. While commercial versions are under a never-ending state of development, David Cambridge decided to build his own using a Garmin Lite V3 rangefinder module.

His device moves the rangefinder with separate servos that handle pan and tilt, and control is accomplished via a pair of STM32 processors. One is placed on the base of the machine, while the other rotates with the rangefinder, both linked together with the use of a slip ring connector. With this carefully controlled rotation, data points are taken and stored on an SD card. This is then fed into the Unity gaming engine to let a computer map out the world in a series of tiny spheres.

While this kind of experiment has been done before, few have done it as well as Cambridge. As shown in the video below, he uses a variety of processes to get things just right, from 3D modelling and PCB design, to producing the needed parts on a lathe and mill, and even casting one part out of aluminum. The resulting scans look excellent as well, and have such a high resolution that he had to take steps to cut these down in order to produce a decent frame rate.