From the products google groups
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...3d/ebRaHl6sylM
Paul,
That's very exciting... in the course of looking at the forum I found Innovation First International... I grew up fairly near Greenville, TX. Will be joining the forum to follow along... have been getting into ROS.org and robotics in my hobby-time.
@Polycarbonate - the way the sensor acquires readings is by sending a bunch of pulses out and then capturing what comes back, combining those into a "correlation record" and then measuring the distance between the crossing point in the reference signal and the next strongest signal (or if you ask for it, the second strongest).
There are a few surfaces and conditions it can't "see" but in my experimental experience it can detect most surfaces from one angle or another. Sometimes with reflective and clear surfaces you can get unexpected results, but that's where that second reference comes in handy. You can use it to see a reflection or an object on the far side of a clear object if you are picking up your strongest signal from the clear object.
Pg. 17 "Signal Acquisition process" through pg 22 "Processing" of our manual goes into detail about how the sensor records information:
http://pulsedlight3d.com/pages/docs
Let me know if you have any more questions very happy to help! We're excited about what the chiefdelphi.com community is going to do with LIDAR-Lite!
- Austin