You ever wanted to scan real objects to have it as a 3D model? It is not really not-affordable anymore.

First there is the DAVID laserscanner which just needs a webcam and a laserpointer (that creates a line, not a point) and that software. It creates point-clouds.

Then there is Microsoft Photosynth or the Software Bundler for Linux. It orders photos from digital cameras into 3D space and creates point-clouds in 3D-space, too. Since Photosynth is not intended to create 3D models of the photos, it's a bit tricky to get the files with the point clouds inside from their server (you need to do network sniffing) but actually its quite easy to do, there are tutorials for that too.

There is MeshLab, an open software program to create a mesh out of the point-cloud.

Here is a test I made from a short (1min) and blurry video of a candle holder at my home. It's pretty impressive that photosynth found so many points on right positions:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=9675bcd4-ce1d-43da-a190-ed0362a70bc1