Laser scanner hardware/software?

[PB2U2]

Anyone know of any brainiacs out there who have figured out how to incorporate the use of laser scanning and software when desiring to copy a model or sign already produced? Hopefully it would take the place of the tracing tip available now. (forgot the exact name of it, sorry) My simple mind just thinks there could be a place for laser scanning made applicable for woodworking and software files for each being kept. Any other THOUGHTS out there are certainly welcomed.

[Bob]

This website is one place to start looking:
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/

Bob

[Tim Owens]

The problem with digital scanners for CNC machine the cheapest quality unit we've been able to find that is actually a direct replacement for our touch digital probe is about $2500 at this time. The David scan in the link above is a good for an overall loading of three-dimensional information. This system can be inacurate generally because they're doing it visually using a camera off some reference points. if you are trying to do this for parts I would not go this route and there can be problems with reflections can also give you some trouble. It is certainly an inexpensive way to try to get into the scanning world but there can be a lot of playing around with it in order to get it operational. This final point is this is not a direct replacement for the digital probe but it is a stand alone system not intergrated with the CNC. We are looking in to it as something that we want to do in the future. But we have a few projects going for the AWSF