I hope this is the right place.

I am a programming beginner, and I want to make a laser range finder, and I need advice about how to proceed etc.

In a few weeks I will get a lot of dirt cheap 3-5V lasers and some cheap usb webcams.

I will point the laser and webcam in parallel, and somehow use trigonometry and programming to determined distance.

I have seen online that others made done it this way, I have purposefully not looked at the details too much because I want to develop it on my own, and learn, but I know the general outline.

I have a general idea of how to proceed.

The program loads in a picture from the webcam, and I dunno how images work really, but I imagine there is a format that is basically an array of RGB values.. is this right? I will load in the red values, and find the most red one.

I know the height difference between the laser and the cam. I know the center dot in the image, I know the redmost dot. I'm sure there's some way to figure out some range there.

TO THE POINT:

1) Is my reasoning sound thus far, especially in terms of image analysis? I don't need complete solutions, just general points

2) What I need to figure out, is what platform to use.

I have an arduino... apparently, I've read it's too weak to process images. Read that online.

I know some C

I know some Python

I have Matlab.

Which is the best option?

I do not need high sampling rates, I have not decided on whether it should be automated or whether I should make a GUI with a button to press for samples. I will keep it simple and expand I think. I also do not need it to be super accurate, I'm just having fun here.

Advice!