Why wouldn’t you just make a camera mount that can clamp onto one of the two gas pipes and can gimbal for a good view? Seems a lot more flexible and easier to get right the first print.
I don't know this exact meter, but I had a little optical sensor on my meter for years. There was a dial that rotated once per a given volume, it had a black part and a white part. This way a single led and light detector could measure exact revolutions and be able to read out the value. This way it didn't have to read the numbers, which is much harder and can't measure small increments very well.
My meter got replaced with a smart kind years ago, so now I simply have a port that can be read out directly with way more information. But my janky led and light detector thing worked very well for years. Since this was years ago it ran a very simple PIC micro, nothing like a full fledged ESP platform.
If you're already using an esp32 why not just get a simple ultrasonic sensor and measure flow on an indoor inlet pipe? You may need to know the pressure (probably 1.7 kPa) and temperature but that should be possible to calibrate against your meter readings
Then your project just becomes a simple pipe clamp that can be indoors
Afaik scanning will require extra tuning steps. Alternatively you can take rough measurements of few cross sections, then print them on paper, cut the contours and check how it fits, make adjustments and repeat until you are satisfied