"Vintage" Terrestrial Laser Scanner

[Eidetic]

It's hard for me to call this one "vintage" as it's from 2000, but I suppose it is to the younger crowd. It's the Cyrax 2400 terrestrial scanner from Cyra Technologies, arguably the first commercial device of what has become a huge industry. Essentially an electronic distance measurement system on steroids, it incorporates a pair of Cambridge Technology scanners. "The original model that was built and sold by the Cyra company was the Cyrax 2400. Its rangefinder used a Class 2 semiconductor diode laser operating at l = 532 nm in the green part of the spectrum. This allowed a maximum speed of measurement of 800 points per second with a maximum range of 100 m, though 50 m was more realistic with objects having a moderate reflectivity. The stated accuracy in range was ±4 mm over a distance of 50 m. The Cyrax 2400 was a camera-type scanner that could scan a 40° × 40° FOV or window using a twin mirror optical scanning system."

(PDF) Terrestrial Laser Scanners. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publica...Laser_Scanners [accessed Sep 03 2018].

[CountFunkula]

Cool! Love what they did for...uhhh...let's call it "airflow management" . Thanks for posting!

[Laserbuilder]

Very interesting device!

[NobleGas]

The galvos in that thing are huge; I happen to have one (galvo) right here and can testify they are not light!

[buffo]

Just to clarify - this thing was originally used to scan the landscape to generate a topographical map, right? As in, to capture the varying elevations on a given plot of land, so long as it was within the 100 meter limit?

If so, that's pretty cool.

Adam

[Eidetic]

It was actually used to record point clouds of everything seen in its field of view, to create a three dimensional model of it all for measurement or documentation. Range finding was the very first application of the laser, with a program started for it by hughes before they announced the first laser to the world. Spit a laser pulse toward an object and time its return to get the distance. Do that for a large number of spots by scanning throughout a volume and you get a 3D picture. There are lots of scanning technologies out there to get similar results. The LIDARs that information to driverless cars is similar.

[buffo]

Cool! Thanks for the info. Are you thinking about trying to restore this one, or is it just part of the museum?

Adam

[Eidetic]

Just for display.

[dkumpula]

Cool stuff!

This technology is/was really exciting for archaeologists. It allows them to capture much better detail of a site as compared with the old days of manually measuring.

[JasonB]

Hey, that is a Futuba R/C style servo (under the camera, behind the bounce mirror). Cool, thanks for posting, interesting!