Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) have gained momentum in identifying cracks and deformations. Although TLS efficiency has been recognized over time, the scan data quality is contingent upon various parameters (e.g., material type and scan settings), which impacts the use of TLS. To address this barrier, this study investigates the measurement accuracy in the context of crack analysis in foam board and common building materials (concrete, wood, and masonry) by conducting a set of controlled experiments with different scan settings (e.g., scan distance and angle of incidence). The findings of this study provide practical contributions to using TLS for crack identification, specifically addressing the effect of different parameters on point cloud data quality and proposing boundary ranges for different scan settings regarding different building materials and crack widths to facilitate TLS planning. •Effect of various TLS parameters on crack width measurement accuracy is studied.•Three common building materials with varying crack widths are tested.•The variations in the error rates are plotted for crack width measurement.•Boundary ranges for different scan settings were proposed.