What is included with the AL-500?
 
The system comes with a carrying/shipping case, cleaning/maintenance materials, and 6 foot power and ethernet cables (other lengths are available on request). Power is connectorized on the AL-500 end, ethernet on both ends. Also included is Acuity's PointWorks general purpose LIDAR interface and point cloud viewer/exporter.

What else do I need to use the AL-500?
 
You will need a 24 to 28 volt (10 amp peak) battery or power supply and a Windows computer with a 100 or 1000 Mbit ethernet port or a USB to Ethernet converter and a USB port, and must have OpenGL 3.3 or later. Most computers purchased with Windows 7-10 have OpenGL installed, but you may need to update it. A computer with a high performance hard drive or preferably a solid state disk drive is recommended. The computer can be connected directly or through a network to the AL-500. While it is possible to connect the AL-500 to a network with a computer connected via WiFi, we do not recommend it for high sample rate scanning. Acuity can supply or recommend appropriate batteries, supplies, and computers.

How should the AL-500 be mounted?
 
The base of the AL-500 has four 1/4-20 mounting screw holes. It should securely fastened to a base plate or adapter plate that can hold it rigidly during rapid rotation. It can be mounted in any orientation. It may also be mounted to a sturdy camera tripod. Acuity can supply suitable base plates and tripods to go with the system.

What about software for working with point cloud data?
 
There are many point cloud processing, merging, and point cloud to polygon conversion packages available, including industry-specific pacakages. There are also open source point cloud manipulation, merging, and polygon generating packages that may well meet your requirements. The PointWorks C++ source included with the AL-500 can also be used as the basis for your own LIDAR control software.