Re: 3D Scanner/ Dizitizer

You could make something similar yourself although it would not be
overly simple. If a decent lens or microscope objective is used to
focus a laser beam to a point and then this point is imaged to a
camera or photodiode then the maximum brightness is found when the
beam is focussing onto the surface beneath, i.e. when the surface is
at the lens focal length from the lens. You scan in Z to find this
maximum and record the height, move over and repeat. There are
probably other more complex ways of doing it using image correlation
for example, I don't know just thing off the top of my head. A
filter to remove the ambient light would also be helpful. It also
won't work well on steep slopes.

Graham