Hi finkbom
Laser scanners are really expensive and require a fair bit of experience to use. Once you finish a few scans you then need to connect them together using “registration”. Software that performs good registration is very expensive as well.
The good thing about laser scanners is the effective range can be 10-50m for good detail (medium quality scans).
The main scanners out there that everyone seems to use are:
- Zoller + Fröhlich (Excellent scanners, the 5010c is one of the best I have ever used)
- Leica P40 (new scanner, but in the same league as the 5010c)
- Faro scanners (much cheaper, portable scanners with 1/8 quality of the above).
There are also a few good scanners from Trimble but I have not used personally. The Leica P20 scanner (older scanner) is fairly good but does not have good imaging capabilities like the new one.
You are looking at 100k USD for the premium scanners, and about 50K USD for Faro (Could be cheaper now).