I’m happy to discuss alternatives, please schedule here: Calendly - Erin Rapacki
I used to work in solid-state LiDAR while trying to sell a RealSense replacement so I became rather familiar with the alternatives, but it depends on your specific application such as: indoors/outdoors, resolution, RGBD or just Depth, IEEE Time Sync, interference mitigation, IP67, dust/fog expectations, durability, range, etc…
I now work on Unity Simulation for roboticists, including 3D camera modeling (noise, optical distortion, etc) for training and testing Spatial AI applications in robotics & video. Check out ZeroSim for ROS (Open Source) ZeroSim - Robotic Simulation Services
My shortlist includes:
- ifm or anything PMD iToF (Gener8 FusionSens)
- anything using Sony DepthSense (Lucid, Basler Blaze)
- Azure Kinect (if you are OK with USB)
- OAK-D (new, OpenCV AI Kit: OAK—D– OpenCV.AI)
I’m usually not a fan of stereo, has too many depth-of-field issues for applications with a continuous range. I’m a fan of iToF if the surface reflectivity is within a narrow range. Some automotive LiDAR (Cepton, Ouster) have qualities for longer range, outdoor, applications but has resolution and cost tradeoffs that might not be worth it for <3m applications.
I wonder when we can rip out the iPAD SPAD…