1. An intra-oral laser digitizer comprising: a light source having collimating optics configured to generate a collimated beam of light; a scanner optically coupled to the light source and configured to scan the collimated beam along at least two axes; an optics relay coupled to the scanner and configured to relay the scanned, collimated beam towards a remote object to be imaged; an image optics system having an optical axis configured to detect a reflection of the scanned beam from the object at an angle &thgr; with respect to the optics relay and to generate data representative of a surface of the object based on the reflected beam; and a processor coupled to the scanner and the image optics system configured to generate a three-dimensional image of the object based on the data.