📡 Spinning Multi-Channel LiDAR: Scan Pattern, Range Ambiguity and Reach (2D)

Top view of a rotating laser scanner in a room with pillars, with a side view of its stacked channels hitting the ground in rings. Change the number of channels, the vertical field of view, the rotation and pulse rates, the surface reflectivity, the detector threshold, the beam divergence, the timing jitter and the room size, and watch the returns build up, the point spacing, the range precision, the echo power and the range-ambiguous ghost points. Time of flight, ray casting, the radar equation and the ring geometry are checked numerically, with four in-page numerical checks.