If you're working with real-world objects, one approach is to place the object of interest on a turntable, allowing you to capture multiple perspectives with a single camera/sensor. Philo Hurbain has made some delightfully clever LEGO NXT 3D scanners this way (delightful especially because they're used, in turn, to digitize the shape of complex LEGO parts) - one using a needle probe, and another using a laser.