Hi !

Here is one of my recent renders. Model is made from 3d scan data (polygon guides for accuracy of model made by ACME DC) and I've modeled it as full SubDs model, surfaced and rendered when i had some free time to play with it. It's finally off the NDA (since 2006 when it was modeled) so i can show it now .

It's not CAD data (lot of guys thing that when you mention "scanning" ) so this is not just model optimization job. This is scan data made by hand (AcmeDC did great job on that and I can recommend them to anyone if they need that kind of work) and I got 2864 polygons scan and i made 147 814 polygons object . You get bits and parts, size and position of major parts on model (that kind of model can't be scanned in 3D scanner like you would scan toy or so since too many pipes and parts are overlapping each other). So at the end basically you model everything from scratch but have exact dimensions of each part and it's depth and major part positions so you can properly position and model polys/parts when you look at reference photos. It's like modeling from very precise blueprints so model at end is very, very accurate and fit's in car model perfectly fine 'coz it uses 3D tracking in space so it can be moved back to position no matter where you model it at origin .

Here is one wireframe shot to see Scan data vs Final model difference .
http://www.lewis.tomsoft.hr/temp/LW/Scan-vs-Final.jpg

cheers and thanks for comments

BTW render is made to look kinda fancy like Illustration and not like totally realistic one (then i would use some dirt and oil stains and so on but i wanted it clean but still looking good ).