ferrolho

ferrolho / VL53L5CX-BNO08X-viewer

Public

Turn a Time-of-Flight sensor into a 3D Scanner

299
51
100% credibility
Found Feb 05, 2026 at 84 stars 4x -- GitGems finds repos before they trend. Get early access to the next one.
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AI Analysis
Python
AI Summary

Real-time 3D point cloud viewer that displays measurements from a multi-zone time-of-flight sensor with orientation tracking from an IMU, streamed from an ESP32 microcontroller.

How It Works

1
🔍 Discover the Project

You find a fun project that lets cheap sensors create live 3D views of the world around them, complete with a demo video.

2
🛒 Gather Your Parts

Pick up an affordable gadget board and two tiny sensors for under $30 from online shops.

3
🔌 Hook Up the Sensors

Follow easy pictures to connect the sensors to the board with simple wires, sharing the same communication lines.

4
⚙️ Load the Sensing Software

Use a straightforward tool to put the special sensing program onto your gadget board so it can read the sensors.

5
🚀 Connect and Launch

Plug the board into your computer and start the viewer program to bring everything to life.

6
🌐 Open the 3D View

Visit a web page in your browser to instantly see colorful dots showing distances in real 3D space.

7
👀 Move and Scan

Tilt and point the sensor to watch the 3D picture update smoothly, fitting flat surfaces or building maps of your room.

🎉 Enjoy Your 3D Scanner

You now have a handheld tool that visualizes surroundings in 3D, perfect for mapping or detecting objects effortlessly.

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Star Growth

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AI-Generated Review

What is VL53L5CX-BNO08X-viewer?

This Python project turns a cheap VL53L5CX time-of-flight sensor paired with a BNO08x IMU into a real-time 3D scanner and viewer. Connect the sensors to an ESP32, flash the firmware, then run `python -m viewer --port /dev/cu.usbserial-0001` to stream data over serial and visualize 64-zone point clouds in your browser at localhost:8080, complete with IMU-stabilized orientation. It's perfect for devs wanting to prototype spatial awareness without expensive lidar.

Why is it gaining traction?

With 138 stars, it stands out for its sub-$30 hardware hack that delivers smooth 15Hz scanning, temporal filtering, plane fitting via least squares or RANSAC, and a mapping mode to accumulate 3D environments. The Viser-based web viewer lets you tweak point sizes, toggle rays, and switch coordinate methods on the fly, hooking robotics tinkerers who need quick IMU-tracked scans over clunky alternatives. Extras like voxel downsampling keep performance snappy even in mapping.

Who should use this?

Robotics hobbyists building autonomous drones or rovers needing cheap depth sensing; AR/VR prototypers scanning rooms for spatial anchors; embedded devs testing time-of-flight in Python pipelines before hardware commits. Skip if you need sub-mm precision or radial distances—it's perpendicular only.

Verdict

Grab it for playful 3D scanning experiments; docs are solid with wiring diagrams and a demo video, but at 1.0% credibility and 138 stars, treat as early-stage—fork and turn this GitHub repo into a template for your sensor viewer. Solid for weekends, watch for production hardening.

(198 words)

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