This library provides convenient access to distance measurements from the VL6180 i2c time of flight distance sensor on the raspberry pi. The sensor board I have been using is from SparkFun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12785
Although it is designed for the Pi it is likely to work with most linux systems.
The library is very simple to use, here is the basic code for getting distance measurements
#include <vl6180_pi/vl6180_pi.h>
...
vl6180 handle = vl6180_initialise(1);
int distance = get_distance(handle);The integer passed into initialise is the i2c device number /dev/i2c-n
The distance returned will be in mm
#include <vl6180_pi/vl6180_pi.h>
...
vl6180 handle = vl6180_initialise(1);
float ambient_light = get_ambient_light(handle, GAIN);The ambient light returned will be in lx.
GAIN - predefined value from vl6180_pi.h. For factory calibrated sensor GAIN_1 is appropriate.
Whilst there as already an existing Arduino library for the sensor there was nothing to allow it to work with the Pi. This project solves that.
To install the library download the code and then run
make
sudo make install
If you do not have the i2c device on your pi you need to enable i2c. This can be done by following the instructions here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-4-gpio-setup/configuring-i2c
You may also need to install i2c-tools libi2c-dev
sudo apt-get install i2c-tools libi2c-dev
To test the basic functionality download the code and then run
make check
Contributions are welcome. This only implements a very simple usage of the VL6180, it has many other functions which could be added to this library.
This software is made available under the MIT license