Arduino Low-Cost monitoring system for building structures

[GeoSurveyor]

Hey guys,
Iam kinda new in this Arduino community and don't know if this is the right section to post this.
I've been workin on a project with a few mates from uni and wanted to ask you guys to give a little feedback.
We're studying land surveying and geomatics in germany and had to develop a monitoring system to monitor building structures for a small amount of money.
We needed to collect the parts to build this thing.

Here is what we used:
- Steppermotor 7,4 V / 280mA
- EasyDriver V4.4 from SchmalzHaus.com
- MAX232 level converter
- Leica Disto Pro4 to measure distances
- Arduino Uno R3
- a few capacitors 100nF for the MAX232

After connecting all the parts we started to programm the code for the arduino.
Here we managed to set a few parameters as variables like motorspeed, step size etc.
Another thing was to build a mount which holds all the parts and the last thing was to visualize the data.

To plot the Data we wrote a Matlab programm because matlab is quite good for plotting simple 2D plots.
We didn't have the chance to use the arduinos processing.
The developed System is now capable of monitor objects within 3-5 mm and we think it is quite a good result.
It could be used to monitor buildings during construction work or even movements of hills near villages.

Well, enough theory. We just wanted to show you the results to get a little feedback or approvement advices.

Here is what we've done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zry10ECEz0

We'd really appreciate good and bad critique
Thanks
GeoSurveyor

[liuzengqiang]

Good to know geo-surveyors are also using arduinos! Neat project. Does the stepper motor have a home switch to help return the unit to a predetermined angle? That might come in handy. Some nicer stepper motors have readouts on the back that you can read within 0.1 degree or even better. Also they have a screw you can loose to rotate by hand for zeroing. The wires on arduino are a bit uninviting so maybe use a proto shield to reduce some wires?

[robtillaart]

What is the price of -  Leica Disto Pro4   - ? where did you buy it?

[RLLasso]

I am very interested in your project and need as much info about what you did so that I can assemble a system like this for a school project. The link for the video does not work anymore and I would like to see that video if possible.  I am a Land Survey student and want to create a system like yours using Arduino as a class project. Any help is greatly appreciated!!
thanks,
Robert