If you have multiple views of the object and can take a video, NeRF and Gaussian Splatting tools can form a 3d model if you have an NVIDIA GPU. I don’t know if there are good user facing tools for this though (I mess with these things in my research), if you have a technical background you might be able to get NeRF Studio to work.

That’s all fair! For myself I use a lot of PET-CF, especially annealed. For some applications you can get away with the stiffness and the creep resistance provided by annealed PET-CF rather than needing a machined part, so for me an air fryer or equivalent is a must (for both drying and annealing). I build stuff for astrophotography, so having a material that is heavily resistant to creep and is also stiff is a must.

I’ll note that for PETG, if your print is under nontrivial load, it will probably start to deform well below the 80C mark. Continuous use I believe is about 70C. Though because PETG is so inexpensive, you can always just reprint as long as assembly isn’t too difficult.

You’re right that PLA, PETG, and TPU are like 90% of anyone’s needs though.

Having a way to dry filament is a good idea. You can do so with a cheap food dehydrator or a dedicated filament dry for the purpose.

My favorite way is an air fryer, as it can actually hit the temperatures needed for certain engineering filaments (ASA-CF, PET-CF, PPS-CF) and the forced air combined with the fact that they aren’t sealed tends to be more effective than the spoolholding dryers. I then print from a dry box made from cereal boxes with molecular sieves. This is overkill if you are just printing standard filaments though (PLA, PETG, TPU, etc.)

I’ll add that there are still fairly common situations when you’ll want ABS/ASA: If you’re building something with stepper motors (say parts for a printer), ABS/ASA’s higher temperature resistance means you can push more current through your motors without deforming the print where the motor is mounted. This is of course especially helpful if you’re putting parts into a heated chamber, where PETG will likely start to deform under prolonged use at 60C+ temperatures. ABS/ASA are also more rigid, so they’re better for high speed printer parts. Finally, if you’re putting something in a car in a hot environment, PETG will not really hold up, but ASA will.

W.r.t your spool question, ABS is still a great material choice for a lot of applications since it has pretty well rounded properties. Reasonably strong, reasonably rigid (but not brittle), reasonably creep resistant, and fairly temperature resistant (probably the cheapest filament that can withstand a hot car). It’s generally a bit tricky to print though. You need an enclosed printer for good results (much better layer adhesion and less risk of warping and cracking) and it’ll emit styrene fumes which you don’t want to be breathing. I always put my printer outdoors if I’m printing ABS or its replacement in ASA.

If you don’t care about that high temperature resistance and just want decent impact strength, then PETG is an acceptable alternative. It’s pretty cheap, easy to print, but is a little more flexible than ABS. It has decent creep resistance as well, unlike PLA.

Yeah 1.0 has been quite stable for me. I especially recommend the weekly releases with features planned for 1.1, like better sketch projection tools and snapping.