Hobby Lidar Build

[DavidCambridge]

Hello All

I’ve just finished my Lidar project. It’s based on the Garmin Lidar light V3 module which is really nothing more than a laser range finder sending distance measurements out through I2C.  The range finder is hooked into an STM32, which sends UART data through a mechanical slip ring and then down through a rotating shaft to a second stationary STM32. The second STM32 dumps everything to an SD card.  The top STM32 controls the elevation stepper motor, the bottom STM32 controls the azimuth stepper motor. Motor synchronization is via the slip ring. PCB design was via eagle.  Mechanically, it was all designed in Fusion 360  with the parts machined in my hobby workshop.  I’ve used the Unity 3D game engine for the rendering.

Attached is a screen shot of the results. It's a Lidar scan of my back yard, and you can see an animated render on YouTube at this link



David

[DaJMasta]

Pretty neat!

Do you have plans for an algorithm to match up multiple scans to fill in some of the sides of things, or something that can overlay scans from a moving position?


Rendering in a game engine seems like a neat approach, I'll be it simplifies the rendering a bit, but simplifies the navigation through the scene quite a bit!

[DavidCambridge]

Thanks DaJMasta.  Yes, definitely, I just need to spend a bit of time thinking it through. In the first instance, just manually moving the Lidar and aligning the point sets by hand should hopefully produce some nice results.

[RoGeorge]

Putting the data in a 3D engine, then flying through it looks awesome! 
Subscribed.

[JohnG]

Very cool!

How long did it take to acquire the data?

John

[JBeale]

Very nice work. I have an earlier version of this (Lidar-Lite) sold by SparkFun before Garmin bought out the PulsedLight company in 2016.  Looks like you've got a pretty decent effective range, and good repeatability as well, given the walls of the house seem fairly smooth.

[DavidCambridge]

Thanks for the comments and good feedback.  It feels like about 3 minutes for a scan, so it’s definitely back in pinhole camera territory!

David

[Mechatrommer]

what about connecting those dots into triangle meshes and render to get solid 3D plot?

[JimRemington]

Wow, just wow! And with such a cheap sensor.

I have two of the V2 Lidars (sadly, still unused) and am now verily and truly inspired to dig them out of their boxes!

[DavidCambridge]

I thought I'd try taking my home made Lidar somewhere more interesting than my back garden, and luckily I found a vicar kind enough to let me scan the inside of a church!



David

[Jhan_Ore]

hi, I would like to make an image inside of a bridge, I would like if its possible if you tell me how to start please.

Thanks,