Azure Kinect DK[1] & Intel L515[2] are both strong contenders for 3D imaging. Azure Kinect DevKit uses a Time-of-Flight depth sensing good to 5m in low res mode, includes a 12MB rgb camera that can do 2160p30, accelerometer/gyroscope, and 7 microphone array. The L515 is a lidar unit that samples faster & extends to 9m, & includes a 1080p30 rgb camera.

If the goal is generating point cloud, the Azure Kinect's better rgb sensor could be good to have, where-as lidar's advantage- higher throughput depth sampling (faster or higher res)- isn't going to mean as much, probably? Additionally, the accelerometer/gyroscope on the Kinect could potentially be quite useful for registration (figuring out how the camera is pointed).

[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/kinect-dk/

[2] https://www.intelrealsense.com/lidar-camera-l515/

I just built an app for this, if you have a LiDAR iOS device. https://keke.dev/blog/2021/03/10/Stray-Scanner.html

The iPhone costs more than $500, but you can also use if for other stuff.

I can recommend the Intel RealSense L515. Also the old Kinect and Primesense/Xtion cameras are still pretty capable.

And, shameless plug: If you need a software to turn the RGB-D streams into stitched point clouds, check out Dot3D by DotProduct (disclaimer: I'm the founder).

most accessible device these days is probably the realsense

I had good results with the flexx Series from pmdtec. Its super small and and light. https://pmdtec.com/picofamily/flexx/

Isn’t Kinect the obvious choice?