I was playing with my POP2 3D scanner, scanned this toy fish of my kid's and 3D printed the resulting scan. I had to manually draw the spots on it, but really happy with how it turned out. Pictures don't do it justice just how exactly the same they are in hand. Not all of the textures came through though.
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Well, this is with a RevoPoint Pop2. This is 2 or 3 scans merged into 1, no editing outside of the scanning software. I've been extremely impressed at how well this can scan and produce a 3D printable STL. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to get a file with the surfaces usable in CAD software. I can pull the STL in and see it, but not constrain it or create intersections with it.
For scanning, Epic Games has a phone app that I've seen seriously impressive results from just photogrammetry. I did not have very good luck with it, but it is definitely capable of great results. If you have a newer iphone, some of them have a depth sensor and apps available that can 3D scan.
If you want to scan primarily 3-8" objects the Pop2 is great. It's even at what are probably clearance prices at Amazon right now ($400-450 USD). I bought mine used/open box directly from Revopoint via ebay for $400. Definitely get the turntable. It is definitely worth the extra $50.
Thanks for the reply back. Yeah that price point is just a tad bit higher than I'd want to do. I actually would love to rent one out for just a few days but the companies that I've seen that would let you rent one only offer much higher end models and the price ends up being what the one you have costs. Worth it if you do it often to rent or just buy a lower end unit, but not for the onesy-and-twosy personal projects I have in mind.
I've tried a few phone apps, and got only ok results. I had one that let you scan a room. Cool. The results looked good because it used photos as a texture map, but the geometry itself was useless.
You might have issues bringing the point cloud data into CAD. You might end up having to recreate the part but using the point cloud as your reference. Solidworks does have a point cloud tool but no idea how good it is. Working with surfaces in Solidworks usually is not hugely fun. Rhine might be something to look into.
I haven't heard of the Epic phone app but I might have to look it up.
All I really need is to get the surface data into something other than a "mesh" format. My actual job is working with Catia V5, but my work does not have any of the applicable Catia licenses to directly work with mesh files (such as STLs). If I can get to that point I'm golden. I have plenty of experience working with and creating surfaces.
FreeCad can apparently make a step file from meshes with a few steps, but when I did that with a simple 1 2 3 block scan, the result was about 2.5GB's, and tends to lock up anything that tries to open it. I may look into an open source program to create usable surfaces from point clouds instead of trying to use meshes.
I have access to CATIA but bloody hell that software is complicated. I'll stick with Solidworks even if it's capabilities (at least with surfaces) is lower.
Dealing with converting formats and getting your data where you can manipulate it is needlessly complicated. It isn't a real CAD program, but consider looking at Blender to at least get the mesh into something more usable. Plus it's free.
Good luck dude. If these ever drop into the $200 range I'll definitely pull the trigger on one.