Let's talk
Our handheld 3D scanner over one of the original chrome bathtub handles, the scan building up on its screen

Case study 01 3D scanning · Reverse engineering

A five-star fix, made in Bhutan.

When bathtub handles broke at Le Méridien Paro, Riverfront, the resort wanted replacements made inside Bhutan. We scanned an original, turned it into a print-ready 3D file, and the new handles were printed here.

Client
Le Méridien Paro, Riverfront
Where
Paro, Bhutan
The part
Bathtub handles
Our work
3D scan, reverse engineering, print-ready file
0.04mmScanner accuracy
24,161Frames captured in the scan
58Reference markers tracked
0Parts imported
  1. Le Méridien Paro, Riverfront, beside the river under forested hills

    01 The call

    A five-star resort reached out.

    Le Méridien Paro, Riverfront is a five-star resort on the river in Paro. Some of the handles on its bathtubs had broken, and the hotel needed replacements. It also wanted them made here, inside Bhutan, rather than ordered from abroad.

    We wanted to be the ones to make that possible.

  2. A bathtub at the resort, with a chrome handle on its sideThe handle

    02 The problem

    A part you can't buy in Bhutan.

    A bathtub handle looks simple, but it is a precise piece of hardware: a curved bar, a mounting face and screw holes that have to meet the bath exactly. There was no local supplier to call. The usual answer is to order a replacement from abroad, and wait.

  3. Our handheld 3D scanner over the chrome handle on a turntable dotted with markers, the scan building up on its screen

    03 The scan

    We scanned a sample handle.

    We took one of the original handles and scanned it with our handheld 3D scanner. Polished chrome is one of the hardest surfaces to scan, because it mirrors the light the scanner sends out. So the handle sat on a turntable dotted with reference markers, more markers went onto the handle itself, and the scanner tracked 58 of them as it worked.

    More than 24,000 frames later, every curve, face and hole was captured, accurate to 0.04 mm.

  4. The chrome handle held in front of the screen, beside its 3D scan

    04 The software

    From a scan to an exact file.

    This is the high-tech part. We ran the scan through our software: cleaning up the measured points, joining them into a solid surface, and converting it into a 3D model built exactly to the specifications the handle required.

    The result was a file ready for a 3D printer, with nothing left to guess.

  5. Two new handles, 3D printed in Bhutan from our file

    05 The print

    Printed by a partner, here.

    We handed the file to a 3D printing company in Bhutan, and it printed the new handles from it.

    Without our scan, there would have been nothing to print. This project would never have happened.

  6. The resort's marble bathroom and bathtub

    06 Made in Bhutan

    They never had to leave Bhutan.

    We're happy to say that in a very short time, the solution was made inside Bhutan. The resort got its new handles without going outside the country for them.

    That is what we love about this work. Every part we scan and rebuild here is one less part to import, and one more thing Bhutan can make for itself.

Without our scan, this project would never have happened.

  1. 01Scan the original
  2. 02Process the points
  3. 03Model it to spec
  4. 04Print it in Bhutan

Something broken?

Let's scan
it.

If a part is hard to find or slow to import, we can probably capture it, model it and get it made here. Send us photos and a few details on ClearFix, or write to the engineering team.

Fix it on ClearFix ↗ Talk to engineering See the scanner