3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

The time-of-flight 3D laser scanner is an active scanner that uses laser light to probe the subject. At the heart of this type of scanner is a time-of-flight laser rangefinder. The laser rangefinder finds the distance of a surface by timing the round-trip time of a pulse of light. A laser is used to emit a pulse of light and the amount of time before the reflected light is seen by a detector is timed. Since the speed of light  is known, the round-trip time determines the travel distance of the light, which is twice the distance between the scanner and the surface. If  is the round-trip time, then distance is equal to . The accuracy of a time-of-flight 3D laser scanner depends on how precisely we can measure the  time: 3.3 picoseconds (approx.) is the time taken for light to travel 1 millimeter. The laser rangefinder only detects the distance of one point in its direction of view. Thus, the scanner scans its entire field of view one point at a time by changing the range finder's direction of view to scan different points. The view direction of the laser rangefinder can be changed either by rotating the range finder itself, or by using a system of rotating mirrors. The latter method is commonly used because mirrors are much lighter and can thus be rotated much faster and with greater accuracy. Typical time-of-flight 3D laser scanners can measure the distance of 10,000~100,000 points every second.

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner

3D Laser Scanner