I recently ordered a Lidar Lite from Sparkfun... This is a very capable distance measurement device, a laser rangefinder  in a very compact form and is also relatively cost effective... Pulsed Light company  first carried out a successful Kickstarter last year and now the device is commercially available... Link to manufacturer:  http://pulsedlight3d.com/ 

After playing a little, I managed to get this tiny device working... the setup can be seen in above pic... I placed the Lidar on a pan-tilt driven by an Arduino and sent distance measurement to PC on which the output is visualised by a  Processing sketch... Arduino sketch:

/* Sweep Lidar Scanner

*  Lidar Lite sensor sending cm distance while servos sweep

* Dincer Hepguler 2015

* http://borsaci06.com

*/ 

 

#include <Servo.h> 

#include <I2C.h>

#define    LIDARLite_ADDRESS   0x62          // Default I2C Address of LIDAR-Lite.

#define    RegisterMeasure     0x00          // Register to write to initiate ranging.

#define    MeasureValue        0x04          // Value to initiate ranging.

#define    RegisterHighLowB    0x8f          // Register to get both High and Low bytes in 1 call.

 

 

Servo myXservo;  // create servo object to control X servo 

Servo myYservo;  // create servo object to control Y servo

 

int posX = 0;    // variable to store X servo position 

int posY = 0;    // variable to store Y servo position 

 

void setup() 

{ 

  Serial.begin(57600);

  myXservo.attach(10);  // attaches X servo on pin 10 to the servo object 

  myYservo.attach(9);   // attaches Y servo on pin 9 to the servo object  

  I2c.begin();          // Opens & joins the irc bus as master

  delay(100);        // Waits to make sure everything is powered up before sending or receiving data  

  I2c.timeOut(50);    // Sets a timeout to ensure no locking up of sketch if I2C communication fails

} 

 

void loop() 

{ 

  while (millis() > 30000);{

  for(posX = 30; posX <= 150; posX += 3) // goes from 30 degrees to 150 degrees 

  {                                  

    for(posY = 60; posY <= 140; posY += 2){  //Y axis sweep

    myXservo.write(posX);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos' 

    myYservo.write(posY);

    //delay(1);                       // waits for the servo to reach the position

  GetDist();

   } 

   for(posY = 140; posY >=60; posY -=2){ //Y axis sweep

    myXservo.write(posX);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos' 

    myYservo.write(posY);

    //delay(1);                       // waits for the servo to reach the position 

  GetDist();

   }

  }   

  for(posX = 150; posX >=30; posX -=3)     // goes from 150 degrees to 30 degrees 

  { 

    for(posY = 60; posY <= 140; posY += 2){     //Y axis sweep

    myXservo.write(posX);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos' 

    myYservo.write(posY);

    //delay(1);                       // waits for the servo to reach the position

  GetDist();

   }     

    for(posY = 140; posY >=60; posY -=2){     //Y axis sweep

    myXservo.write(posX);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos' 

    myYservo.write(posY);

    //delay(1);                       // waits for the servo to reach the position 

  GetDist();

   } 

  }  

}   

    myXservo.write(90);

    myYservo.write(90);

    delay(25);

}

 

void GetDist(){

// Write 0x04 to register 0x00

  uint8_t nackack = 100; // Setup variable to hold ACK/NACK resopnses     

  while (nackack != 0){ // While NACK keep going (i.e. continue polling until sucess message (ACK) is received )

    nackack = I2c.write(LIDARLite_ADDRESS,RegisterMeasure, MeasureValue); // Write 0x04 to 0x00

    delay(1); // Wait 1 ms to prevent overpolling

  }

  byte distanceArray[2]; // array to store distance bytes from read function

  // Read 2byte distance from register 0x8f

  nackack = 100;        // Setup variable to hold ACK/NACK resopnses     

  while (nackack != 0){ // While NACK keep going (i.e. continue polling until sucess message (ACK) is received )

    nackack = I2c.read(LIDARLite_ADDRESS,RegisterHighLowB, 2, distanceArray); // Read 2 Bytes from LIDAR-Lite Address and store in array

    delay(1); // Wait 1 ms to prevent overpolling

  }

  int distance = (distanceArray[0] << 8) + distanceArray[1];  // Shift high byte [0] 8 to the left and add low byte [1] to create 16-bit int

  // Print Distance and axis pos

  Serial.print(posX);

  Serial.print(",");

  Serial.print(posY);

  Serial.print(",");

  Serial.println(distance);

}