Printing Lithopanes

The 3D printed image

What it looks like

A lithopane is a 3D printed surface in which the thickness of the object reflects the brightness of the image that that point. I’ve done a bit of this kind of thing myself in the past with the Kinect sensor and so I thought I’d try some with the new printer. I used a web based service you can find here which takes an image and provides you with an STL file you can then slice and print. I had a go and I’m very impressed with the result. It’s quite something when a lumpy bit of plastic suddenly turns into a proper picture.

If you want to have a go (and if you have a 3D printer you should) make sure you check the options to select a Positive image. I forgot this vital step and ended up with a negative image after four hours of printing.