But you are adjusting values to get a more perfect reproduction, not to produce a new work.
Copyright doesn't care how long you worked or how hard it was. It cares if you made a new creative work. What you describe would be more in the domain of patents.
Yes, but I think there are two problems with that idea, and that it can be creative:
1. There is no digital ground truth, so you can't actually objectively tell whether your adjustments are making it more accurate. It relies on subjective comparison and sometimes manual patching up (3D equivalent of photoshopping).
2. There are many different equivalently accurate representations, some of which are better for some purposes. E.g. how the surface is tessellated or otherwise represented, which bits are more important and deserve more fidelity, 3D printing (and what kind) or CNC router or virtual movie prop, etc.
I think it's copyright rather than patents, as it's very manual and subjective (not a well-defined process or algorithm).
Of course, I am not a lawyer, so I don't know how much of what I'm describing is sufficiently creative to count as a new work.
Copyright doesn't care how long you worked or how hard it was. It cares if you made a new creative work. What you describe would be more in the domain of patents.