http://www.agisoft.ru/products/photoscan
In 2004 I had the chance to visit the Stibbert Museum to make a research over a famous XIV° century visor.
Being a kind of nerd in love with 3D, I took the chance to take as many picture as I could of the piece, and make a 3D version of it.
The interesting thing, is that I've not simply modeled it after the pictures, I used a photogrammetry software to make an "exact" digital copy of it.
After many years, this science has made leaps ahead, and now it's as easy as take pictures!
This mean that you don't need anymore a complex setup to obtain your 3D model, but you just need to take picture of the subject, and the magic will appear after your PC cruched all the data.
So, the opportunity this software give is to make a 3D model from actual picture of the object, allowing a new and deeper level of study of our favourite subjects: armour and weapons that we will never have the chance to touch!
Take a look at the galleries of those softwares, there are interesting things.