The typical use case for these sensors are robots which are not stationary. I intend to have the sensor stationary and scan a certain area for activity. This activity basically is people standing in the "scan zone". The resulting output depends on the complexity and interactivity needed for the final project.

I'm using the RPLidar project in Python on a RPi4 to process the data and generate the output. I tried getting it to with in CPython, but apparently the current library does not play nice with the current firmware on the censor.

The first task was to understand the data coming out of the sensor and into python. Basically, the sensor provides a dump of measurements every rotation. You get an angle and a distance measurement. I can easily do all the necessary processing between packets.

For a single user interface, the process is very simple. Find the nearest measurement. The following step is either to compare that data to a lookup table and see if that position is a trigger, or to convert the data into coordinates which could then be mapped on the projection area as mouse coordinates.

The Python script can also ignore half the measurements which are behind the area. In the final build, a shield behind the sensor will ensure that these angles won't even generate a measurement point because it will block the laser at a distance where it can't resolve the distance.

The script should also ignores distances that are too far away, leaving the maximum time to process the proper data.