Industrial boiler door 3D scan — Yugadanavi Power Plant
3D scanningA corroded flanged door, scanned on site and rebuilt as a clean manufacturing model.
Yugadanavi Power Plant
Service
3D Scanning Services in Sri Lanka
Physical geometry captured to 20 microns, delivered as files you can build from.
3D scanning turns an object into measured digital geometry. It is the fastest honest way to capture a shape that is too complex, too organic or too worn to measure by hand — a casting, a moulded panel, a machined housing with blended surfaces.
We scan with industrial-grade equipment at accuracy down to 20 microns (0.02 mm), and deliver mesh files ready for printing, archiving or inspection. Scanning is not limited to bench-sized parts: our work includes on-site scanning of an industrial boiler door in a working plant.
Worth knowing before you commission a scan: a scanner produces a mesh, not a solid model. A mesh is enough for 3D printing, for comparison against a nominal shape, or for archiving. If you need editable features, defined tolerances or manufacturing drawings, the mesh has to be rebuilt into a solid model — that is reverse engineering, and it is separate work. We will tell you which one you actually need.
What you receive
- Mesh files: STL, OBJ
- CAD exchange formats where the geometry allows: STEP, IGES
- On-site scanning where the part cannot travel
- Solid model rebuild, quoted separately when required
Suited to
- Complex, organic or freeform shapes
- Parts too large or too fixed to bring to a workshop
- Archiving geometry before a component is scrapped
- Checking a manufactured part against its intended shape
Coverage
Colombo and surrounding areas, with island-wide delivery and on-site engineering support.
Request a quoteProcess
How the work runs
Turns a physical object into measured digital geometry. On its own it produces a mesh — a mesh is not yet an editable CAD model.
- 01
Prepare the part
Matt spray applied to shiny, dark or transparent surfaces; reference markers placed where the geometry needs them.
- 02
Scan
Captured on the bench or on site, as a point cloud, using industrial-grade equipment.
20 µm accuracy
- 03
Align and merge
Multiple scan passes are registered together into one complete dataset.
- 04
Process the mesh
Noise is removed and holes are closed until the mesh is watertight.
STL · OBJ
- 05
Deliver, or continue to reverse engineering
A mesh is enough for printing, archiving or inspection. An editable model with real features and tolerances is a separate step — reverse engineering, not scanning.
You end up withA mesh file (STL/OBJ), or a CAD exchange file if the geometry is simple enough.
3D scanning in practice
Vehicle instrument cluster cover
3D scanningAn instrument cluster housing captured by scan and rebuilt in CAD.
Common questions
Before you ask
- How accurate is your 3D scanning?
- Down to 20 microns — 0.02 mm — using industrial-grade scanners. Achievable accuracy on any given job depends on the part's size, surface finish and geometry; dark, glossy and transparent surfaces are harder to capture than matte ones.
- What file formats do I get?
- STL and OBJ for mesh data, and STEP or IGES where a CAD-compatible format is required. Tell us which software you will open the file in and we will supply the right format.
- Can I get a STEP file directly from a scan?
- Not directly in a meaningful sense. Scanners output point clouds that become polygon meshes, while STEP describes solid bodies mathematically. A mesh can be exported into a STEP container, but it will not behave like a real solid model. To get a genuine parametric solid, the scan has to be rebuilt as CAD — that is reverse engineering.
- Can you scan on site?
- Yes. We provide on-site engineering support for parts that cannot be removed or transported, which is how the industrial boiler door in our portfolio was captured.
- Can scanning bring back a spare part for a vehicle that's no longer sold?
- Scanning captures the shape, and that is the first half of the answer. Turning the scan into a manufactured replacement is reverse engineering, the next step — most of the automotive work in our portfolio runs both together.
Bring us the problem.
A part, a process, or just an idea. Tell us the situation and we will tell you the engineering route to solving it — honestly, even if that route isn't us.
MechaCAD Solutions, 368, Siyambalape North, Siyambalape 11607, Sri Lanka