You can soften the entire mesh in one operation. Just select it (you need to have both faces and edges that need softening selected) then just r-click and choose soften edges from the context menu. Rack the slider up until all the visible edges disappear.

thanks for all the replies. It's fascinating. It'll take me a while to master it. thanks again

Based on these photos only tgi3d calibration tool reports a relative dimensional uncertainty of around 5 percent (not acceptable for most applications). (Need more features and/or more photos of the same set up to get more accurate dimensions). You can look at the calibrated scene yourself.
image_igloo.png

therm.skp