page_title: Laser rangefinder
section_title: 3-D modeling
hierarchical_section_title: Laser rangefinder / Applications / 3-D modeling
caption_attribution_description: English: This Leica terrestrial lidar (light detection and ranging) scanner (TLS) may be used to scan buildings, rock formations, etc., to produce a 3D model. The TLS can aim its laser beam in a wide range: its head rotates horizontally, a miror flips vertically. The laser beam is used to measure the distance to the first object on its path. Model: Leica HDS-3000 The Lidar was being demonstrated at UC Santa Cruz when the photo was taken.
context_page_description: A laser rangefinder is a rangefinder that uses a laser beam to determine the distance to an object. The most common form of laser rangefinder operates on the time of flight principle by sending a laser pulse in a narrow beam towards the object and measuring the time taken by the pulse to be reflected off the target and returned to the sender. Due to the high speed of light, this technique is not appropriate for high precision sub-millimeter measurements, where triangulation and other techniques are often used.
context_section_description: Laser rangefinders are used extensively in 3-D object recognition, 3-D object modelling, and a wide variety of computer vision-related fields. This technology constitutes the heart of the so-called time-of-flight 3D scanners. In contrast to the military instruments described above, laser rangefinders offer high-precision scanning abilities, with either single-face or 360-degree scanning modes.
  A number of algorithms have been developed to merge the range data retrieved from multiple angles of a single object to produce complete 3-D models with as little error as possible. One of the advantages that laser rangefinders offer over other methods of computer vision is that the computer does not need to correlate features from two images to determine depth information as in stereoscopic methods.
  Laser rangefinders used in computer vision applications often have depth resolutions of tenths of millimeters or less. This can be achieved by using triangulation or refraction measurement techniques as opposed to the time of flight techniques used in LIDAR.
caption: This LIDAR scanner may be used to scan buildings, rock formations, etc., to produce a 3D model. The LIDAR can aim its laser beam in a wide range: its head rotates horizontally, a mirror flips vertically. The laser beam is used to measure the distance to the first object on its path.
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