I'd like to provide a link I came across to some really exciting work
involving photogrammetry, this generates not only 3d models, but time-
dependent 3D models. That is, 3D motion:
http://www.ir-ltd.net/4d-capture-10-camera-array
It's pretty exciting what is possible now. This system uses 10 DSLR
cameras, and costs around $5k. A laser-based system typically costs
10-30x that.
I've a paper coming out some time this week on generating (static) 3D
models using freely available open source software, more on that once
the paper's actually out.