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.
Difficult surfaces are routine here. Black, polished, chrome, glass, clear and bare metal parts all defeat a scanner left to itself — the light either disappears into the surface or bounces straight off it, and what comes back is a hole in the data rather than geometry. The answer is preparation, not refusal: the surface is matted before capture, the part is scanned, and the coating comes off afterwards. So the honest position is that these parts take an extra step, not that they cannot be scanned. If you have been turned away because a part was too shiny or too dark, bring it.
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
- Black, polished, chrome, glass and bare metal parts
- 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 black, polished, chrome, glass or bare metal surfaces — the ones that would otherwise return holes instead of geometry — and reference markers placed where the shape needs them. The coating comes off once the capture is done.
- 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 need preparing before they scan cleanly, which is a normal step in the job rather than a reason to turn the part away.
- Can you scan black, shiny or reflective parts?
- Yes. Black, polished, chrome, glass, clear and bare metal surfaces are the ones scanners struggle with, because the light is either absorbed or reflected away instead of returning as usable data. We matt the surface before capture and remove the coating afterwards, which turns an impossible scan into an ordinary one. It adds a step to the job, not a refusal.
- Will the preparation damage or mark the part?
- No. The coating is applied only to matt the surface for the scan and is removed once the capture is finished — the part goes back as it arrived. Tell us if a component is painted, plated or cosmetically sensitive and we will confirm the approach before anything is sprayed.
- 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