A camera (or a binocular camera setup) could only ever return depth planes. Lidar returns true 3d forms. Also, depth plane evaluation from cameras is not 100% reliable. Things like reflections, glare and suchlike screw it up.
This is nonsense. There is no difference between the data that binocular cameras return and LIDAR, other than that LIDAR is more reliable and accurate. Your distinction between "depth planes" and "true 3d forms" is gobbledygook.
Maybe I did not express myself accurately enough. I work in VFX, and my language is not always as precise as it could be. But certainly for us this is the difference in application.
Using a two camera input, the best we could hope to get was a depth map. Typically, it is reliable for at most one or two reliable levels of depth, useful for foreground/background separation. Maybe also a crude depth map, useful for fog. With Lidar we could all that plus normal information (i.e. face orientation).
However, I concede your point. The core difference is one of accuracy.
