Today I tried the 123D catch software from Autodesk.

It was on my to-do list for a long time, but a Shapeoko forum user encouraged me to try it out (after he saw my 360 degree lightbox blog post), so I did. Good and consistent lighting is key, and seeing how this is what I made my lightbox for in the first place, I already had some test files on my harddrive ready to go. I imported the Mexican skull source photos from that same blog post into the software, and it gave me a perfect 3D model to play with. I trimmed the bottom and closed the mesh underneath, but other than that it didn’t need any cleanup.

See for yourself. Personally, I’m pretty impressed: