It’s nice to see a simple hardware hack for playing with the technology. Maybe this will encourage some intrepid engineers to build the next wave of hobbyist point cloud collection devices.
There are lots of fun applications like home surveying to 3D model generation.
Now depth cameras were a different story. SwissRanger was $10-15k, but were usurped by the sub-$200 Kinect just a few years later.
http://velodynelidar.com/docs/news/This%20Palm-Sized%20Laser...
But yes on the whole i concur
That's why loads of the DARPA Grand Challenge vehicles were plastered in SICK LIDARs [1] back when Velodyne only had one prototype, and it was on a truck they were putting in the competition themselves [2].
Course, Velodyne's product may be 10x the cost, but it has 64x the number of lasers, and good range and direct sunlight performance, so it's understandable that it took off.
[1] https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-sep-28-2005-fontana-ca-usa... [2] https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-10/popscis-darpa...