I'm currently working on an application for mapping the environment with a range sensor. Right now it's only a sharp sensor (GP2D12) mounted on a servo that is turning slowly, while the readings and corresponding servo angles are being sent constantly to my PC via serial. The program then converts the angle and distance to x/y coordinates and draws a map.
Later it's is my plan to use this on my robot in combination with a homemade digital compass (hall effect sensors) and quadrature enocoders on the wheels to measure the approximated distance the robot is traveling. All these factors will be integrated into a so called SLAM application (simultaneous localization and mapping).
I'll be posting more info and source code etc later. Just thought I'd share the 1st screen shot of the application. I'll try to make a video later. It's pretty cool to see the red "laser beam" sweep the surrounding for objects. :)
So far I'm not entirely happy about the precision of the readings. It seems to have a problem with edges. But I'll do what I can to improve it...