I found an affordable laser type ranger finder at
http://www.aculux.com/ for $1080. Another is
www.baumerelectric.com. I would go with the aculux. I just need to find software that will work with the aculux. I believe Art of CNC who is the designer of Mach1 is trying to make his mach1 work for aculux. As for using a CMM arm, it is too expensive. I good research project for me would be to build my own using extrusion aluminum for the arms and encoders to measure the arms angles. I believe programs like Rhino can convert points data into solid models. This is what my findings say I should go with.