Collaborate Disseminate
For any project there’s typically a trade-off between quality and cost,as higher quality parts, more features, or any number of aspects of a project can drive its price up. It seems as though [iliasam] has managed to avoid this paradigm entirely with his project. His new LIDAR system knocks it …read more
Continue reading LIDAR System Isn’t Just A Rangefinder Anymore
The interesting thing about submissions for The Hackaday Prize is seeing unusual projects and concepts that might not otherwise pop up. [ken conrad] has a curious but thoughtfully designed idea for Raspberry Pi-based SmartZoom Imaging that uses a Pi Zero and camera plus some laser emitters to create a device with a very specific capability: a camera that constantly and dynamically resizes the image make the subject appear consistently framed and sized, regardless of its distance from the lens. The idea brings together two separate functions: rangefinding and automated zooming and re-sampling of the camera image.
The Raspberry Pi uses …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Rangefinder + Camera = SmartZoom
Pour yourself a nice hot cup of tea, because [iliasam]’s latest work on a laser rangefinder (in Russian, translated here) is a long and interesting read. The shorter version is that he got his hands on a broken laser security scanner, nearly completely reverse-engineered it, got it working again, put it on a Roomba that was able to map out his apartment, and then re-designed it to become a tripod-mounted, full-room 3D scanner. Wow.
The scanner in question has a spinning mirror and a laser time-of-flight ranger, and is designed to shut down machinery when people enter a “no-go” region. …read more
The successor to the M only shoots stills, and you’ll pay a lot for that red dot. The post Leica Debuts Its New M10 Camera and, Yep, It’s Gorgeous appeared first on WIRED. Continue reading Leica Debuts Its New M10 Camera and, Yep, It’s Gorgeous
[Neumi] wrote in with a sweet robotics hack. It’s a 2D laser distance sensor (YouTube) made with a cheap line laser and an optical mouse’s flow-sensor chip used as a low-resolution camera. In one sense, it’s a standard laser-distance-sensor project. But it is clever for a whole bunch of reasons.
For one, using a mouse sensor as a low-res camera is awesome. It’s designed to read from a standard red LED, so the sensitivity is in just the right ballpark for use with a line laser. It returns a 30×30 pixel greyscale image, which is just about the right amount …read more
Continue reading Mouse Brains Plus Line Laser Equals Rangefinder
No screen, no menu system, no video, and no JPEGs: For a mere $6,000, the Leica M-D is a high-end throwback. The post Leica’s New Digital Rangefinder Has No LCD Screen, Still Costs $6K appeared first on WIRED. Continue reading Leica’s New Digital Rangefinder Has No LCD Screen, Still Costs $6K
