Lithophane Maker & Photo to Relief STL

A lithophane is a thin plate whose thickness follows the picture: dark areas are thick and block light, bright areas are thin and let light through. It looks like a plain relief until you hold it in front of a lamp or window, and then the photo appears.

Common settings are 0.8 mm at the thinnest and 3 mm at the thickest, at 100–150 mm wide. A thinner minimum makes bright areas glow more but is fragile; a larger range adds contrast. Print in white PLA at 100% infill with fine layers (around 0.12 mm), standing upright so the detail is formed by the walls.

Both turn brightness into height. A lithophane is made to be backlit, so dark pixels are thick. A relief is viewed from the front like a sculpture, so light pixels are raised. Invert flips either mapping.

Every grid point becomes two triangles, so very fine detail on a large print produces huge files. The tool keeps the mesh under 250,000 points and coarsens the grid when needed. A 0.2–0.3 mm grid is already finer than most nozzles can print.

No. The image is read and turned into a mesh by JavaScript in your browser tab, and the STL or 3MF is generated locally. Nothing is sent to a server.