Neil,

I use a simple "lazy susan" bearing I purchased at Lee Valley for $10, it can hold up to 1000lbs. This I turn by hand and it works very well. Much like Hughes I use the focus of the cross to tell me when distance is correct. Here is a tip: If you can't see it in both scanning screens, it will not capture that data.

You will find that when you scan objects that have corners/edges on them that as you rely on the auto alignment just due to accumulated errors the scans will not line up when you get back to where you started. My solution has been to place the object on a surface that has plenty of very simple but unique details that allow the software to always have plenty of data to align to. Right before my most recent crash I had a perfectly aligned scan that looked great. The base also saves time because the scans almost always align perfectly even if you have turned the turntable quite a bit. Once again, when you are dealing with a shape like a cube, when you pass over to capture a new face that wasn't present in previous scans, the auto alignment will likely not work. This has been my experience anyway.

Hugues, what do you mean you don't bother with water tight anymore? Have you found a way to import the raw scan data into another program? I was trying to find out what format the scan data was in to try to do that myself, as I do know a couple programs that would work very well with such great scan data. I would be very interested in hearing more. I'm importing the meshes into Solidworks 2014 but that relies on EinScan-S not crashing out before I get that far. Once I get into SW though, its "Scan to 3D" add-in is amazing.