Drop a picture above and it comes back as a 3D relief in STL form, the file 3D printing software opens. The page shows the model in 3D, so you can turn it and check it before downloading, and every setting rebuilds it in a moment. The picture never leaves your device.
How the picture becomes a relief
The converter reads the brightness of every point in the picture. On a flat base, the darkest parts rise the full relief height, the lightest stay at the base, and every gray rises in proportion, the way a height map works. Transparent areas count as background and stay at the base. The raised surface is closed with walls around the edge and a flat back, so the STL describes a solid object rather than a single sheet.
Colors count only by their brightness: a picture becomes a single-color model, and two colors of the same brightness rise to the same height.
Settings
- Width: the model's width, in millimeters or inches. The depth follows the picture's proportions.
- Base: the thickness of the flat plate under the picture. Set it to 0 for the picture alone.
- Relief height: how far the darkest (or lightest) parts rise above the base.
- Raise: dark parts for a black logo or drawing on white; light parts for a height map, where lighter means higher terrain, or for a picture drawn light on dark.
- Detail: the spacing between the points of the surface. Standard places one every 0.2 mm; Fine every 0.1 mm makes four times as many triangles and a larger file, and Draft every 0.4 mm a quarter as many. Very large models get a coarser spacing automatically, and the page says so.
Under the settings, the page shows the model's finished size, its thickest point, its triangle count and the size of the STL.
Pictures that work well
Logos, signatures, drawings and silhouettes with clear dark-on-light contrast make the crispest reliefs. Remove a photo's background first to raise just the subject: the background remover leaves it on transparency, which stays at the base. Photos also convert, as a textured surface whose shading follows the picture's brightness.
Edges follow the picture's pixels, softened by the resampling to the model's grid. For a logo with perfectly smooth outlines, a vector file does better: convert the picture with the PNG to SVG converter, then raise the shapes with SVG to STL, which builds the outlines from curves instead of points.
Relief or lithophane?
A relief is meant to be seen from the front, its raised parts catching the light. A lithophane is the opposite: a thin panel whose dark parts are thick, so a light behind it shows the photo. For that, use the lithophane maker, which also previews the panel lit from behind.
The STL file
The download is a binary STL in millimeters: a closed surface of triangles, every one facing outward, with a flat back to sit on the printer's bed. If a program reads it 25.4 times too large or too small, it assumed inches: choose millimeters when importing. The model is one solid, so any slicer can prepare it like any other STL.
Frequently asked questions
How does a picture become an STL?
Each point of the picture becomes a height. On a flat base, the darkest parts rise the full relief height, the lightest parts stay at the base, and grays rise in between, in proportion to their brightness. The surface is then closed with walls and a flat back, so the STL is a solid you can print.
Can it make a full 3D model of the object in my photo?
No. It makes a relief: a flat plate with the picture raised from it, like an embossed medal. A photo's depth isn't in its pixels, so nothing here guesses the back or sides of the object in it.
Which pictures work best?
Logos, drawings, silhouettes and high-contrast pictures give clear reliefs. Photos work too, as a textured surface; for a photo that appears when light shines through it, use the lithophane maker instead.
Should the dark or the light parts rise?
Dark parts rising suits a black logo or drawing on white, so the lines stand out. Light parts rising suits height maps, where lighter means higher terrain, and pictures drawn light on dark.
How big is the file?
It grows with the size and the detail: Standard detail places a point every 0.2 mm, and each point adds about two triangles. A 100 mm wide square picture is about half a million triangles, roughly 25 MB. Draft detail makes a quarter as many.
Is my picture uploaded?
No. The picture is read and the model is built inside your browser tab, so the file never leaves your device.