I can't find the darned link or video, but the guy uses a cheap line laser along with a rotary table and a web camera. That gets you the scan of whatever and then you need to put the different scanning together with software.That is the part that cost's some $ ...I think the software was $500 to do it. In the end you get a 3d image out of it which can be be saved as a steel file. Accuracy was quite good. In fact there was a 1 hour TV show on laser scanning , within the last year or so,where he went through the whole thing and how it was all done...may have been one of educational TV channel.
Ring a bell to anyone out there?
RICH