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LIDAR Seabed Scanner

The LIDAR Seabed Scanner detects the surroundings and projects the depth as different colors in a overhead view and a 2D profile view.
VERSION 1.1 - See the change notes for details.

"Much like our real planet earth, the world of Stormworks is mostly covered by water. Parts of these depth have never recieved a single ray of light. While waves and winds roam the surface, the seafloor is peacefully waiting to be explored."


Features:
- Realtime seabed projection.
- User friendly.
- Collision detection and warning in relation to actual draught depth.
- Able to detect dangerous shallows not shown on default map.
- Provides a useful radar image even at high speed.
- Low noise from pivots.


Check out the example boat to try it out yourself!

- - - INSTALLATION - - -

The script is made to work with 2x2 monitor. To save space I opted not to autocenter the display, but you can shift it around using the offsets by clicking the microcontroller.

1. Use the selection tool and cut/move the whole creation. Then load the ship you want to install it into and paste the LSS beside it.

2. Move/cut the black antenna to the desired position. It should have good visibilty forward and down. See the example boat. Connect electricity.

3. Move/cut the microcontroller AND the compass sensor to the desired position. Connect the "Video" and "Activate" nodes.


- - - OPERATOR'S MANUAL - - -

- MAX horizontal scan distance: 500M
- MAX scanning depth: 500M

Display colors:
RED = the measured depth is above the draught OR above the selected upper boundary.
BLACK = the measured depth is below the selected lower boundary.
GREY = the depth has not been measured.

The faster the boat moves the more noisy image will be displayed on the screen as the antenna is not able to pickup every new position. I find that it provides a pretty useful image up to around 100kph, where it becomes quite noisy. By default 10000 positions are stored, each postion being 10x10m. This can be edited in the microcontroller. I recommend using 350M as the range as this will place one measured position at each monitor pixel. The collision warning is somewhat unreliable as it struggles to detect steep cliffs going into the water as well as narrow bridge pylons.

FAQ:

• Can the antenna be placed upside-down?
  Yes. The first time the antenna is turned on it will detect its orientation.
  
• The antenna is not able to scan that deep, why?
  For the antenna to be able to scan 500m depth it needs to have visibility straight down. Still, this is not a requirement and if the antenna is not able to scan straight down it will simply work with the visibility it has. These are the scan angles and corresponding max scannable depths:
  
  Scan angle

  Max detectable depth

  -30°

  250M

  -45°

  350M

  -60°

  400M
• How do the LSS work on a submarine?
  You can enable "Submarine mode" and this will display the depths relative to the crafts depth. Else than this the functionality will be completely the same.

- - - GENERAL INFORMATION - - -

Suggestions for improvement, bug reports, critic is appreciated!

If you want to improve this creation you are free to edit or reupload it, but kindly credit me. The code is not minified.


Hope you like it, have fun!