It looks like you have to spend (at a minimum) €7500 ($8395.13 USD) for a 12-month lease or buy it outright for twice that price to get the command line interface. https://www.capturingreality.com/Product#Download
Unfortunately, I'm just a hobbyist, so I just can't justify it for myself, but if I worked for a big company doing this kind of work I could see how the cost could be justified. The software really is that good.
For me, 3DF Zephyr is the best compromise between price and quality. I'm a paying customer in large part because the makers are contributors to this subreddit who have always been helpful every time I've had a question. I've also been pleasantly surprised by how often they keep releasing software updates. Their software is rapidly getting better with each release.
This.
Also, RealityCapture has a "draft" mode for the pics taken which lets you preview the coverage of the point cloud. They are advertising this feature. Taken from https://www.capturingreality.com/Product:
"Analyze & Continue
Super-fast draft mode which aligns 500x12 megapixel images in less than 10 minutes on a notebook, right at the field. Combine whatever type of data you have - images, laser scans, aerial imagery...
Analyze right in the field and get to what you need efficiently.
Take pictures and add them to a project. Click draft alignment. Verify the result. Repeat steps 1-3 until the desired result is achieved."
Well, here's the situation:
1) I was under the impression that there was only options to pay for scans one at a time, or to purchase a bulk amount of scans to be computed. This was the root of my "pay to play" comment.
2) I was wrong: https://www.capturingreality.com/Product-Licenses-Overview