This article is aimed at describing the technology, system architecture and specifications of a new 3D Nd:YAG scanning lidar. Main features of the system are interspersed low-range and far-range exploration, open user-configuration scanning tools and a specific architectural design based on parallel CPU control, a LabView user interface and a digitally controlled optoelectronic receiver. The latter provides key advantages to the whole system architecture such as calibration of lidar returns in terms of absolute power and repeatability. Issues concerning system responsivity calibration, receiver gain self-calibration, automatic gain control and synchronization offset-drift zeroing and the like, all of which are of prime importance for the lidarist, are presented. As far as we know, these contributions are new to the state-of-the-art of the community of optical and electronic lidar system designers.