When my business partner was in recently in Montana flying a project, he was going to be in the area of Devil's Tower. He was going to see if the alien base was really there. It wasn't! Surprise surprise.
He just stuck our Canon 5D out the window and flew in some circles freehand and shot some photos. Then he used one of the expensive software packages we have and made a 3D model. The movie is all made from individual still photos. We have a obj file and will send it to a friend with a 3D printer. He wants to make a 3D model of it. I asked if he had a mashed potato output, but all they have is plastic.
Since no customer was paying for this, he just free-handed it. If we had a paying customer we would have set up the computer and the mapping camera and shot a lot more photos and they would make an ever better model. A lot better. This is still cool.