Okay... I´ve been doing some calculations and have found that the non-contact aproach just wouldn´t do. The accuracy is just too low if the scanning is to be completed within reasonable time. If I was to compensate for the lack of precision, it would take a whole day to scan the car, and that´s just too long, and I don´t think the 10$ microchip could handle the heavy calculations required either, so I have focused on the contact variaont, and found that it could be done quite easily. As a matter of fact, the microchip has an integrated UART, and therefore can be directly hooked up to the serial port of any computer, so the only thing I need to do is to write a maya-plugin that can receive the data from the COM port, and put it into 3D-world.

On the PC, I´ve been using "hyper terminal" to comunicate with the chip,and been able to send and receive data from it. It was even easier than I expected!
When the button on the scanner is pressed, the chip sends the coordinates to the COM-port, one byte at the time, and the data is sent back to the chip to verify it, and if it´s okay, it proceeds to the next byte.
Since hyper terminal is not a programming interface, I had to type the data back manually, but at least, it proves that it works. The only thing I need now, is a script sample on handling terminal functionality through the COM port, and it´s working (at least the comunication between MAYA and the scanner).
The next part wil be designing the position encoders, and get that data from the position sensors into the microchip, nd alsoensure the accuracy of the entire design. At this point I´ve encountered a problem. No matter how light-weight I make it, the material would still flex and bend when I move the point-scanner over the car surface, so I´m also working on a device to make it semi-automated, much in the same fashion as the power steering on a car.


Final note...
I could post code samples and scematics much like the WIP part of this forum, but the various parts wouldn´t be much good without the entire design, and they´re also due to change whenever I make modifications and improvements, but on the other hand, the people that reads this forum might get their own ideas, and could help me with the design.