A laser rangefinder is a device which uses a laser beam in order to determine the distance to a reflective 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.
Rangefinders provide an exact distance to targets located beyond the distance of point-blank shooting to snipers and artillery. They can also be used for military reconciliation and engineering.
Opti-Logic Corporation introduced the first consumer level time of flight handheld laser distance meter in 1987. The original handheld consumer priced laser rangefinders were used for golf. Since that time numerous applications have developed. The most popular use is for hunting.
Until 1993, phase shift instruments were reserved to professional users, giving them high prices and advanced functions like Bluetooth data transmission. Less expensive models around 150$/€ are emerging from Bosch with the DLE 50 or Stanley Works with the TLM 100.
Handheld military rangefinders operate at ranges of 2 km up to 25 km and are combined with binoculars or monoculars. When the rangefinder is equipped with a digital magnetic compass (DMC) and inclinometer it is capable of providing magnetic azimuth, inclination, and height (length) of targets. Some rangefinders can also measure a target's speed in relation to the observer. Some rangefinders have cable or wireless interfaces to enable them to transfer their measurement(s) data to other equipment like fire control computers. Some models also offer the possibility to use add-on night vision modules. Handheld rangefinders use standard or non-magnetic batteries.[1]
The more powerful models of rangefinders measure distance up to 25 km and are normally installed either on a tripod or directly on a vehicle or gun platform. In the latter case the rangefinder module is integrated with on-board thermal, night vision and daytime observation equipment. The most advanced military rangefinders can be integrated with computer.
In order to make laser rangefinders and laser-guided weapons less useful against military targets, various military arms may have developed laser-absorbing paint for their vehicles. Regardless, some objects don't reflect laser light very well and using a laser rangefinder on them is difficult.
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 in order 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.
The 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.
Source: Wikipedia.
