that's great for 3-d imaging, but it's also expensive... a simple sonar/IR array will work for determining distance in any direction...
Originally posted by Sayeh
Determining distance with any vision system is about a thing called "triangulation'. That's why you have two eyes. It gives you depth perception because distance is calculated based on focus. When an image is brightest and edges are sharpest, the image is "in focus". Whatever mechanics it took to alter the focus so that this event would occur, are queried based on position or synchro-server feedback and those values are translated via table lookup to a "real-world" distance. It's very simple.
The 'bot' must know, by initial table data, that the motor at position "zero" means it's focused out at some specific distance (for example, an inch away). Thus, when queried, the motors can return the difference of where they are from where "zero" is, and this is translated into a focus distance.