Hello!
Jean, actually a big reason that we got the D3200s was that they got supported by Smart Shooter and that their price was cheaper than the Canon 600D, hehe. With the 1100D I cannot quite get the level of detail that I want (for portrait) in the way that I want.
We will be going the Nikon route since they are great and we have some more D3200s on the way!
We intend to use the same rig for capturing faces but this will be done without any noise, it is not actually needed for this and would probably create more problems due to reflections.
Here you can see some results that we've gotten.
In this first one we processed at High quality. We had the front cameras closer to the subject and the cameras on the back a bit further out.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ej3fs4i2fs02fi/130610_Brustest_01.jpgMuch better results than this can be had by having the cameras closer together (closer stereo-pairs) but we are trying to find some good middle ground with coverage in mind too.
This is from the same as before but cropped and processed at Ultra High.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lnfom78rfbly12/130612_Brustest_01.jpgWe will process at High setting since the Ultra High takes too long and we retrieve the small details from the texture map as can be seen in this one.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uj872lln5lth30f/130615_ZBtest_01.jpgFor this I decimated the model down to 200000 in PS and then I just did smoothing on it and no other cleanup. I am a beginner when it comes to post-processing so keep that in mind.
I have done tests with continuous light but the problem is that I currently don't have strong enough light to have them usable when diffused. Also for the portrait they aren't enough since one has to have pretty high f stop to get enough dof.
Lee, I seem to recall that SK had some pretty good guides about noise projection, hehe. I have some things in mind that I will be trying and I will share the results here later.
Funny you mention IR, I was actually thinking about having some cams converted (seems to cost about as much as a camera though

) and using a bunch of kinects with the glasses mod (so as to minimize the patterns) to do this but I simply cannot due to budget reasons, hehe.
Another thought in that vein was making DIY projectors with some such lightsource.
I guess with the upcoming Kinect 2 and others that those might be a waste though, hehe.
Best, Magnus.