Recently I stumbled upon laser based 3D scanning.  All I needed was a line laser, but I didn't want to buy one because they're kind of expensive.  So I just built my own using stuff I had lying around:





Read more if you want to see another line laser concept, 3D scan results and a video. 

I'll start with the basic items needed:





You will need a small DC electric motor, a cheap laserpointer and small mirrors.  Just attach one little mirror to the motor's axis and build a little holder for the laser:









As the motor spins the mirror the reflected laser will form a perfect line.  As long as the motor spins with more than 24 rps there will be no problems with cameras and 3D scanning:









And here's a video of the laser line:

















There's another way to create a laser line from scratch:

Take an old harddrive, disassemble it and remove the actuator mechanism:

Attach a little mirror as shown in the pictures below:

The next step is to attach the actuator's coil to some AC current:

The complete setup will look like this:

The AC current through the coils will cause a vibrating actuator arm.  This setup also provides a quite good line laser ! 

Here are some of my 3D scans I made with these two setups:

You can create your own scans using the free software http://www.david-laserscanner.com/