The term originated in a 2005 Society of Manufacturing Engineers' "Blue Book"[1] on the topic, which referenced numerous suppliers of both scanning hardware and processing software.
DSSP employs various 3D scanning methods, including laser scanners, to acquire thousands to millions of points on the surface of a form and then software from a variety of suppliers to convert the resulting "point cloud" into forms useful for inspection, computer-aided design, visualization and other applications.
Second, it misses the essential role of processing software in converting point cloud data into useful forms.
In some ways, DSSP is a 3D analog to DSP (digital signal processing) in that the software attempts to extract a clear and accurate 3D image from point data that may include noise.
The amount of data capturing capability has also increased many fold, due to the advances in the camera technology and faster, more powerful computers.