Friend of mine started a little scanning service in Brisbane and I had a chance to check out the tech. Even got myself scanned.
It's a relatively simple system that captures 3D geometry in a single shot using 4 DSLR cameras.
Most of the work is actually done after images are captured. Once high resolution images are downloaded onto computer, software analyzes 4 images by triangulating pixel and pattern shifts in 3D space
There are number of
papers and projects describing how it all works in more detail. Check out his site at
3dfacelab.com
Software and projects based on the same tech:
http://www.photosculpt.net
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor