Lithophane Guide • How to make different lithophanes • ItsLitho https://itslitho.com/category/lithophane-guides/ Image to Lithophane Maker 3D print Sun, 14 Dec 2025 15:38:37 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://itslitho.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Middel-3@2x-100x100.png Lithophane Guide • How to make different lithophanes • ItsLitho https://itslitho.com/category/lithophane-guides/ 32 32 Christmas Lithophane Ornament: How To 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Balls (2025 Update) https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-ornament-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-balls/ https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-ornament-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-balls/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2025 00:00:47 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=7135 Would you like to make your own personalized 3D printed Christmas decoration? In this guide we will instruct you step-by-step on how to model and personalize your own 3D printed Christmas bell ornament.

The post Christmas Lithophane Ornament: How To 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Balls (2025 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Christmas Lithophane Ornament: How To 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Balls (2025 Update)

  • By Ludovic Richter
  • Last Updated: December 14, 2025
Christmas tree with 3D printed christmas balls

What is better than decorating your house for Christmas? Decorating it with your own 3D printed personalized Christmas ornament! That’s why we designed these 3D printable Christmas ball lithophanes for you to personalize. Let’s learn how!

Contents

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Create your own 3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Christmas is just around the corner, and we all think about decorating our houses to make them as cozy as possible. Christmas trees are the major element to lift up the Christmas spirit and atmosphere for children and adults alike. It’s joyous to prepare & decorate your house – If everything is according to plan. 

It’s a wonderful moment when you finished your setup and light up your Christmas Tree. But this year,  we will make it even more special! With the help of Ludovic Richter from Litho3D & ItsLitho lithophane maker, we’ve made it possible for you to make a 3D printed Christmas ball lithophane in a very simple way. And as a light source, we have used garland lights. It couldn’t be easier!

So how do you make a 3D printed Christmas ball from a lithophane? Let’s jump in!

The goal of this design is clear, making it easy to design, easy to print, easy to assemble & easy to decorate. 

This model comes in 2 sizes each. One model that fits garlands with spot LEDs with a diameter of a maximum of 9mm. And one model that fits Lantern LEDs with a maximum diameter of 11.2mm.

Christmas ball ornament 3D print DIY

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Requirements

Christmas ball Attributes
Pure
Drop
Creamy
Swirl

Get Discount

Get the Christmas ball bundle now with a discount!
Get them all
-30% Off!
Material recommendations

1

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Personalize Your Lithophane

First, head over to the ItsLitho Lithophane maker, preferably in a different tab to follow this guide alongside the tool. Once you’ve done that, we can begin to create our unique lithophane Christmas ball!

To start building your own Christmas balls, download the dedicated profile for the Christmas ball lithophane. In the video below, we show you everything you need to know about ItsLitho profiles. 

Prepare your image

The image preparation is being made in two stages. 

Stage 1 | Select the images you would like to use

Select your image and size it. You can use picture software to crop and size it to the desired dimensions. To avoid any excessive deformation when it will be wrapped on the spherical lithophane, the best Height/Length ratio is roughly 1:3. Basically, your image should be a rectangle with 3 Lengths for 1 Height.

You can import 2 or more images to be wrapped on the lithophane, but this ratio (H:L) should be close to 1:3 at the end. 

Christmasbal Ball 3D print image ratio

Stage 2 | Enhance the contrast by adjusting the image inside ItsLitho

Upload and optimize your image to improve the lithophane’ contrast when lighted. Important here is to adjust the picture contrast and lighting to enhance the difference between the dark and light areas. 

Edit your 3D model Lithophane

When you are happy with the looks of your image, we can focus on the last part, the 3D model settings.

We only need to take a look at the most important setting for lithophanes. The thickness. The thickness is depending on the filament you use. In our store, we mention per filament what min/max settings are the best for that type of filament.

This print benefits with a lower min/max than usual since the light source that we are going to use is not very bright. This 3D design is optimized for a 0.8-2.8mm min/max. 

When you are done with all your settings, we can download the lithophane (no attribute needed). 

2

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Download & Print your files

Next, we need to make sure we got one of the Christmas ball attributes needed for the design.

The download package contains:

  • 1 Christmas ball top
  • 1 Christmas ball base
  • 1 Christmas Attachment

Select the model(s) you want to make:

Pure
Drop
Creamy
Swirl

Slice & Print your Christmas ball

Now we choose and print the remaining parts which are needed to build the Christmas ball. All Christmas ball attributes work the same way: 

  • One top part - Which is opened at the top (diameter 8mm) to receive the led’ garland spot and to be clipped on the lithophane;
  • One bottom part - To be clipped on the lithophane;
  • One ring part - To be clipped on the top to maintain the led’ garland cable in the Christmas ball.
3D print Christmas ball examples

Print all parts flat on the building plate, support and brim could help but are not mandatory. 

Check out: slicing tips for lithophane for more information slicing lithophanes.

Christmas ball lithopahane add-ons

3

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Assemble your 3D Printed Christmas ball

When all parts are printed, you can assemble your 3D Printed Christmas balls lithophane as seen in the video below. 

You’re now ready to create your own amazing Christmas ball Lithophane with garland light using ItsLitho. Light up the Christmas ball & enjoy the magic! 

Also, Check out our Christmas bell Lithophane!

Christmas bell lantern lights

 

Interested in more Christmas decorations? Click here for more Christmas creations!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Christmas Lithophane Ornament: How To 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Balls (2025 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-ornament-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-balls/feed/ 2 Christmas Star Tree Topper – Star Lithophane (Update 2023) https://itslitho.com/featured/christmas-star-tree-topper-star-lithophane/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 20:05:11 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=10635 Every Christmas Tree needs a

The post Christmas Star Tree Topper – Star Lithophane (Update 2023) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Christmas Star Tree Topper – Star Lithophane (Update 2023)

  • By Julien Bonnevie
  • Last Updated: November 02, 2023
Christmas Star Tree Topper Lithophane

Every Christmas Tree needs a topper, what’s better than 3D printing yourself a fancy Christmas tree topper? And with ItsLitho you can Personalize the tree topper with every image! 

Contents

3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper

Create your own 3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper Lithophane

Let your Christmas Tree shine even brighter this year with your personalized Christmas Tree Lithophane Topper! 

Use the image your would like, 3D print your Christmas tree topper & Light it up with a led strip. Let’s jump on how to make one yourself!

3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper

Requirements

Material recommendations

1

3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper

Personalize Your Lithophane

The first step for making your Christmas Star Tree Topper lithophane is by designing your own lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make one yourself! 

For the Fir tree tip star lithophane we need to use the christmas shape and choose Star, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image

Click on This Profile and load your Christmas star lithophane with all the correct settings instantly. 

The only thing you have to do is to add your own picture to create your own personalized lithophane. Adjust your min & max thickness depending on the filament you’ll use to print the lithophane. 

Edit star lithophane image itslitho

Every filament is slightly different, and therefore the minimum & maximum thickness could be different.  We suggest taking a look in our store at what filament works well with lithophanes, and find which thicknesses work best for the specific filament.

Correcting your image

To have the desired result at the level of the image it will be necessary that the dimension of the height is the same as the dimension of the width. It will also be necessary that the image be centered so as to have the most important element of it in the center. For this model, the ratio should be 1:1.

I use Gimp to modify the dimensions of the image, like the example below.

Image correction
image correction for star lithophane

After this first operation, you can play on image settings to improve brightness, contrast or any other parameter.

2

3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper

Download & Print your files

After downloading your lithophane, we need to download the Christmas Star Tree Topper from Cults3D.

The download package contains:

  • 1 Star Box
  • 1 Basement for the box
  • 1 Border for the box
  • 3 Lithophanes

Slice & Print your Christmas ball

Now we got all the files we need, we need to slice & print the models. 

For slicing & printing your lithophane(s) we have written setting tips & provide you with free profiles here. 

For the Star and Border, please print them flat on the building plate, for the Basement, print them verticaly. No support needed. Nothing complex, just open, slice and print.

Layer thickness between 0.12 and 0.24 depending on the desired quality

Star box
Star box
Star Box Border
Star Box Border
Star Basement
Star Basement

3

3D Printed Christmas star Tree topper

Assemble your 3D Printed Christmas ball

When all parts are printed, you can assemble the Star.

We need to glue the base to star. For the assembly, please refer to the following picture:

Lithophane star attribute

You’re now ready to create your own amazing Christmas Star Tree Topper Lithophane with Led Light stip light using ItsLitho. Light up the Christmas Star & enjoy the magic! 

Interested in more Christmas decorations? Click here for more Christmas creations!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Christmas Star Tree Topper – Star Lithophane (Update 2023) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> 3D Printed Christmas Bell with Attributes (2023 Update) https://itslitho.com/featured/3d-printed-christmas-bell-with-attributes/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:01:00 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=10605 Time for a last-moment Christmas

The post 3D Printed Christmas Bell with Attributes (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

3D Printed Christmas Bell with Attributes (2023 Update)

  • By Ludovic Richter
  • Last Updated: November 2, 2023
Christmas bell display

Time for a last-moment Christmas 3D Print? Then we have something for you! Inspired by the popular Christmas bell print, we added an attribute to make it even more Fancy.

Contents

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with Attributes

Create your own 3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with attribute

Christmas is almost there, and we just made our last Christmas 3D print design for this year. 

It’s based on the already highly downloaded Christmas bell lithophane. It’s a great addition to the bell, so let’s jump on how to make one yourself!

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with Attributes

Requirements

Material recommendations

1

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with Attributes

Personalize Your Lithophane

The first step for making your Christmas Bell lithophane is by designing your own lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make one yourself! 

For the Christmas Bell lithophane we need to use the revolve shape, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image

Click on this profile and load all the correct settings instantly. 

The only operation you have to do is to integrate your own picture to create your personalized lithophane and to adjust your min & max thickness depending on the filament you’ll use to print the lithophane. 

itslitho revolve shape

Every filament is slightly different, and therefore the minimum & maximum thickness could be different. We suggest taking a look in our store at what filament works well with lithophanes, and find which thicknesses work best for the specific filament.

Correcting your image

To ensure a proper fit of your image on the revolve lithophane, it needs to have the proper ratio (Height:Length). For this model, the ratio should be 1:1.65, meaning the image should have a length 1.65 time bigger than its height.

Ratio image

After this first operation, you can play on image settings to improve brightness, contrast or any other parameter.

2

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with Attributes

Download & Print your files

After downloading your lithophane, we need to download the Christmas Bell models from Cults3D.

The download package contains:

  • 1 Christmas bell top
  • 1 Christmas bell Ring
  • 3 Lithophanes

Slice & Print your Christmas ball

Now we got all the files we need, we need to slice & print the models. 

For slicing & printing your lithophane(s) we have written setting tips & provide you with free profiles here. 

For the Top and the Ring, please print them flat on the building plate. No support needed. Nothing complex, just open, slice and print.

christmas bell top attribute
christmas bell ring attribute
Lithophane bell

3

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane with Attributes

Assemble your 3D Printed Christmas bell with Attributes

When all parts are printed, you can assemble your 3D Printed Christmas bell lithophane.

Christmas bell attributes 3D printed

For the assembly, please refer to the following picture:

christmas bell light source
christmas bell attribute example

Glue the Top and the Ring on the lithophane. The lantern balloon led light is press fitted in the top. And it’s done.

Christmas bell display

You’re now ready to create your own amazing Christmas bell Lithophane with attributes. Light up the Christmas bell & enjoy the magic! 

Also, Check out our Christmas ball Lithophanes!

 

Interested in more Christmas decoration? Click here for more Christmas creations!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post 3D Printed Christmas Bell with Attributes (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> Christmas Decoration: 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Bell (2023 Update) https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-decoration-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-bell/ https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-decoration-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-bell/#comments Thu, 02 Nov 2023 12:41:00 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=2795 Would you like to make your own personalized 3D printed Christmas decoration? In this guide we will instruct you step-by-step on how to model and personalize your own 3D printed Christmas bell ornament.

The post Christmas Decoration: 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Bell (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Christmas Decoration: 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Bell (2023 Update)

  • By ItsLitho
  • Last Updated: November 2, 2023
Christmas decoration bell

These 3D printed Christmas bells are one of our favorite prints to make during the Christmas season! In this guide, we will help you step-by-step on how to make your own personalized 3D printed Christmas bell. 

Contents

3D Printed Christmas Bell Lithophane

Create your own 3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane

If you are in the possession of a 3D printer – You are a lucky person – Because this 3D model is just waiting for you to be printed.

This festive 3D printed lithophane is not only fun to make, but you can also personalize it in a couple of minutes. So it’s totally worth the little effort it takes to make!

For us, they surely make a nice contribution to our 3D Printed Christmas decoration collection. They are truely magical.  

So how to make these 3D printed Christmas bells? Let’s jump in!

Christmas bell lithophane lantern light
Made by Luke Lewis

Light sources for your Christmas bell lithophane

Before we start designing, it’s important to think about what light source you want to use to enlighten & display your Christmas bell.

For example, the bell can be placed on a table with a light source inside it. This could be like a candle-led light or fairy light. 

Another option could be to hang up the bell. We made a hook attribute that can be downloaded at Thingiverse. The hook is specially made for the size of this profile. But you can downsize the hook the make it fit every size bell! You could wrap a led light strip around the base as we did with our Christmas bells.

When using the hook attribute from Thingiverse you could wrap a LED strip around the base. 

And last but not least, you could use lantern lights. It requires measuring the light & inserting the diameter in revolve shape of ItsLitho. 

So now you got some ideas on how to light up your bell, let’s start with designing!

Light source possibilities

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane

Requirements

Extra Christmas bell Attribute

After many requests for a Christmas ball 3D print, we also looked for a way to create a similar attribute for the bell lithophane. 

This design is made to fit the lantern lights perfectly. The attributes are made for this lithophane profile. You can find the attributes here. For the image of this bell lithophane, we recommend a 1.65:1 ratio.

Christmas bell display
Filament suggestions

1

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane

Personalize Your Lithophane

To make the Christmas bell Lithophane we use ItsLitho Lithophane maker. Once we have the tool open we can start by uploading the image you would like to use for the Christmas bell!

Step 1 | Upload image

First head over to the upload image tab, in the upper left corner of your screen. In this tab, you can upload one or multiple images to your preference. 

We suggest a horizontal image. A ratio around 1.5:1 / 1.8:1 works fine for us. 

Once you’ve selected all the images you want to use, we can move on to the next tab.

Step 2 | Edit image

In the edit image tab you can, as the name suggests, edit your image(s). Although not strictly necessary, it can greatly enhance your lithophane.

Adjusting the brightness and contrast settings may significantly improve the results of your lithophane. Most often increasing the contrast slightly and increasing/decreasing the brightness to prevent oversaturation, will do the trick.

Step 3 | Model Lithophane

In the last step, we will make a lithophane with the used image(s). Head over to the model tab. 

If the image doesn’t fit as desired, you can use the “crop” function to adjust the image to the desired parameters of the bell. 

That’s all it takes! 

Depending on the light & filament you might want to change the minimum- maximum thickness. Especially if you making smaller lithophanes, you might want to lower the maximum thickness. 

Important to notice is that if you would like to change the parameters of the revolve shape. Always start with the height of the revolved shape. When you change the height, all diameters of the revolve shape will change with it. 

The Christmas bell shape is one of the many shapes possible with the revolved shape. As we select the “revolve shape”, a carousel appears. We have added a couple of preconfigured shapes to give some ideas about what could be made!

Christmas ornament bell

via GIPHY

We personally have made a large and small bell lithophane to test this shape. By default, the bell is quite big (156 mm). This can easily be reduced by reducing the height slider. Like said, all diameters will automatically be adjusted to keep the shape. 

The small bell lithophane was only 70 mm in height and looked really cute. And it was printed in just 7 hours!

2

3D Printed Christmas ball Lithophane

Download & Print your files

When you are happy with the preview, we can download the lithophane.

Luckily the Christmas bell lithophane is really easy to print, no supports are needed. If you kept the default diameter settings, then the overhang at the top of the bell is not too large.

For more slicing tips, we refer to our blog: Slicer Settings For Lithophanes.

For material tips, have a look in our store to see what kind of Filaments works well with lithophanes. We also show light sources that work well by displaying lithophanes. 

Print your Christmas Bell

Svg Vector Icons : http://www.onlinewebfonts.com/icon

3

3D Printed Christmas bell Lithophane

Display your Christmas bells

We have printed multiple Christmas bell lithophanes to test our new shape. This came out perfectly! It has found a permanent place in our Christmas decorations.

Christmas bell 3D print hanging
Made by Luke Lewis

We’ve found out that seamless Christmas textures work very well. But the possibilities are endless.

To get the most out of your picture, make sure that the faces are approximately located at the horizontal centerline.

Also, Check out our Christmas ball Lithophanes!

Interested in more Christmas decorations? Click here for more Christmas creations!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Christmas Decoration: 3D Print Your Personalized Christmas Bell (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/christmas-decoration-3d-print-your-personalized-christmas-bell/feed/ 3 Create your 3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern (2023 Update) https://itslitho.com/featured/create-your-3d-printed-halloween-lithophane-lantern/ Sat, 14 Oct 2023 12:00:10 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=10185 Spooktober is upon us, which

The post Create your 3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Create your 3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern (2023 Update)

  • By Ludovic Richter
  • Last Updated: October 14, 2023
3D printed halloween lithophane lantarn

Spooktober is upon us, which means we need some new spooky decorations! And what is better than to make them yourself with your little home factory? Let’s make 3D printed Halloween lithophane lanterns. 

Contents

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Create your own 3D Printed Halloween Lantern

Finally, the spooky season has arrived again. That means it’s time for designers & makers to show their creativity in new spooky designs.  

To help you with some inspiration & design possibilities we made this simple – yet fun & cool 3D print to spook up your atmosphere during this season.  

Because this 3D print contains a lithophane – Which can be easily designed – This Halloween lantern can be personalized with every image you would like to display. The possibilities are endless for this 3D print, which makes it fun to make!

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Requirements

1

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Personalize Your Lithophane

The first step for making your Halloween Lithophane Lantern is by designing your own lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make one yourself! 

For the Halloween Lithophane Lantern we need to use the cylinder shape, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image

You can click on this profile to load the correct shape into ItsLitho and load all the correct settings instantly. 

The only operation you have to do is to integrate your own picture to create your personalized lithophane and to adjust your min & max thickness depending on the filament you’ll use to print the lithophane. 

Correcting your image

To ensure a proper fit of your image on the cylindrical Lantern Lithophane, it needs to have the proper ratio (Height:Length). For this model, the ratio should be 1:4,2, meaning the image should have a length 4,2 time bigger than its height.

Size image

After this first operation, you can play on image settings to improve brightness, contrast or any other parameter.

Correcting lithophane image

2

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Download & Print your files

After downloading your lithophane, we need to download the Halloween Lithophane Lantern model from Cults3D.

The download package contains:

  • 1 Pumpkin top
  • 1 Pumpkin Base
  • 1 Pumpkin Tail

Slice & Print your Lithophane

Now we got all the files we need, so let’s slice & print the models.

For the base, the top, and the tail, please print them flat on the building plate. Nothing complex, just open, slice & print.

For extra slice tips, we made a tips & tricks guide for tweaking your lithophane to perfection.

3D model view halloween lantern

3

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Assemble your Halloween Lithophane Lantern

When all parts are printed, you can assemble the Lantern.

To do this, you’ll need some glue. For the assembly, please refer to the following picture.

First glue the tail on the top. You can then choose to glue the lithophane either on the top or on the bottom. But not on both if no you won’t be able to insert and switch the led candle. You can now insert your candle and see the Halloween magic operates. And it’s done!

Enjoy! If you are interested in more Halloween prints you could take a look at our pumpkin lithophane shape!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Create your 3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern (2023 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> 3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane (2024 Update) https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/halloween-pumpkin-lithophane/ https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/halloween-pumpkin-lithophane/#comments Sat, 14 Oct 2023 12:00:09 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=2495 In this guide, we will explain how to create a pumpkin lithophane perfect for scaring your neighbors during Halloween! The ItsLitho lithophane tool makes it easy to create this Halloween lithophane.

The post 3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane (2024 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane (2024 Update)

  • By ItsLitho
  • Last Updated: October 31, 2024
3D printed jack o lantern

In this guide, we will explain how to create a 3D printed Halloween lithophane perfect for scaring your neighbors! With ItsLitho it’s easy to create this Pumpkin shaped lithophane.

Contents

3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane

Create your own 3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin

We can find numerous amount of pumpkin 3D prints on Thingiverse. But what if we want to adjust the face – or you would like to have a witch, ghost, or someone from your family on the 3D Printed pumpkin? 

When done manually this would take a lot of your precious time. But with the Pumpkin shaped lithophane from ItsLitho this can be done in seconds!

ItsLitho is lithophane maker software, that helps you to convert every image into a 3D printable model. And with the pumpkin shape, you can print every image on your Halloween pumpkin lithophane!

This guide will help you how to make a good-looking pumpkin lithophane. The pumpkin shape has many parameters – that would need some explanation -to adjust the look of the pumpkin, but don’t be scared, we help you through it.

3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane

Requirements

Recommendations

1

3D Printed Halloween Lithophane Lantern

Personalize Your Halloween Lithophane

The first step for making your Halloween pumpkin Lithophane is by designing your lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make one yourself! 

For the Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane we need to use the pumpkin shape, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image(s)

Upload halloween images

Upload the image you want to convert into a lithophane. The scary face image we used can be found via this link. You can also load this profile to load the whole print we made directly into itslitho.

Edit your image(s)

edit Halloween image

Editing your image can really enhance the contrast of the lithophane later on. 

This is optional however, but you can always play around with the above parameters to make the contrast come our better

Model your Pumpkin Lithophane

model halloween 3D print

When selecting the pumpkin shape you already converted your images on the pumpkin shape. When you have used your own image(s), it’s very possible the image is stretched over the entire pumpkin, this is undesired. Let’s fix that!

streched image on pumpkin

Image Correction

streched image correction

Head over to the Image Options. Here you’ll find some handy tools to adjust your image on the 3D model. For this specific scenario, we decreased the zoom factor since the image was way too big for the model. We also adjusted the horizontal placement to lower the image on the pumpkin a bit. 

Customize your Pumpkin Lithophane even more

For those who likes a lot of options, we made a lot of adjustable settings for this pumpkin shape on ItsLitho. These options will give you full control over the pumpkin shape. We will explain these options below.

Detailed Pumpkin Settings

Most Important Settings

We’ll first briefly explain the settings which will make up your pumpkin lithophane. The cad drawings below will help you understand what each parameter means.

Pumpkin 3D model CAD drawing front view
Pumpkin 3D model CAD drawing top view

Texture

By default, this setting is turned on. This means that the texture of the pumpkin itself will be visible in the results. On the other hand, when it is turned off, then the pumpkin will have the same thickness everywhere on the pumpkin. The lithophane is placed on top of the pumpkin. The pumpkin “texture” will not be visible inside the picture.

Invert texture

This function has multiple meanings based on whether the texture is turned off or on. If the texture is turned on, then this option will remove the pumpkin texture from the image, but not the other parts of the pumpkin. If the texture is turned off and this function is on, then the pumpkin which is not the image will be the maximum thickness.

Diameter

The pumpkin will never be smaller than the value given to the diameter. A perfect sphere can always fit inside the pumpkin with the given diameter. This sphere acts as the basis of the pumpkin

Grooves

The number of grooves each picture has on the pumpkin shape. Increasing this number will increase the pumpkin segments.

Default settings (Grooves = 5)

itslitho tool default settings

Grooves option is set to 10

grooves 3d model pumpkin

AmplitudeY

Pumpkins are never a perfect sphere. Thus the amplitudeY setting will create the widened oval-like part of the pumpkin. Increasing this parameter will make the pumpkin more oval-shaped.

Default settings (AmplitudeY = 15)

Pumpkin lithophane - Default FlatnessY

AmplitudeY option is reduced to 5

pumpkin itslitho lithophane side view

FlatnessY

Determines how much the curved line is flattened. A high number will increase the magnitude in which the curve is flattened.

Default settings (FlatnessY= 2)

Pumpkin lithophane - Default FlatnessY

FlatnessY option is set to 20

Pumpkin lithophane - Flatness Y option=20

AmplitudeX

Pumpkins are also not smooth. The amplitudeX setting will create a curved texture completing a pumpkin-like shape. If the texture is turned on (it is by default) then the amplitudeX setting is not visible anymore. Instead, the maximum thickness of the lithophane will govern the magnitude of the curve.

Default settings (AmplitudeX = 2)

itslitho tool default settings

Amplitude option set to 10 mm

3D model Amplitude

FlatnessX

Determines how much the curved line is flattened. A high number will increase the magnitude in which the curve is flattened;

Default settings (FlatnessX= 2)

itslitho tool default settings

FlatnessX option is set to 20

Pumpkin lithophane - Flatness X option=20

Hor Angle

Determines the horizontal angle of the pumpkin. This way the pumpkin can be opened.

Vert Angle

This option has 2 inputs. It measures the vertical angle from the middle (in the vertical) to either the bottom or top of the lithophane.

Inside

The inside option is available for the pumpkin lithophane. This way you can surprise everyone with a normal-looking pumpkin. But once you turn on the light, an (scary) image will appear!

Known bugs:

  • Multiple images do not work if the texture option is turned off;
  • Attributes do not work well (it might sometimes) with the pumpkin lithophane;
  • Grooves increase by the number of images uploaded
  • Images are stretched over the entire pumpkin, in the future, we will add an automatic position function to retain the image aspect ratio!

2

3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane

Download & Print your Halloween Lithophane

After downloading your lithophane we need to slice the lithophane.

The 3D printed pumpkin lithophane requires some extra attention. There are most likely large overhangs on the top and bottom of the pumpkin.

Pumpkin 3D model overhang

The top of the pumpkin will most likely be suspended from the ground and not connected to the other parts of the pumpkin as shown in the image below.

It is important to give this some thought. We suggest you use supports to be able to print the pumpkin lithophane. The best way would be to manually add supports for the top and bottom of the lithophane.

But a quick and easy way is to turn on the supports in your slicer. Increase the support overhang angle threshold to a high angle, such as 70 degrees. This will make sure that only the absolutely necessary parts will get support and often will avoid putting supports on the lithophane itself.

For more lithophane printing tips check out our lithophane setting post. 

3

3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane

Show time

The last thing to do is print your lithophane. You could print the pumpkin with orange filament & a bright led light inside of the pumpkin. Or you could use a white filament with an orange led light inside of it.

Make sure to check the diameters of your print and the light source you want to use & make sure that it will fit your 3D printed pumpkin. 

Be careful while removing the supports, to keep the 3D model as clean as possible that’s it! You are ready to showcase your freshly 3D printed Halloween model!

Halloween lithophane lighted up

Enjoy! 

If you are interested in more Halloween prints you could take a look at the latest pumpkin lantern lithophane!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post 3D Printed Halloween Pumpkin Lithophane (2024 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/halloween-pumpkin-lithophane/feed/ 1 Traditional Dome Lithophane – 3D Printed Christmas Gift https://itslitho.com/featured/traditional-dome-lithophane-3d-printed-christmas-gift/ Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:17:21 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=10496 In honor of the Traditional

The post Traditional Dome Lithophane – 3D Printed Christmas Gift appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Traditional Dome Lithophane – 3D Printed Christmas Gift

  • By Ludovic Richter
lithophane dome display

In honor of the Traditional Porcelain Tea light lithophane holder, we made a 3D printable design from it! Learn how to make your own 3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane in this guide. 

Contents

3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane

Create your own 3D Printed Dome Lithophane

One of the most famous traditional lithophanes is a tea light lithophane. This is a dome-shaped lithophane on a plate on which you can put the tea light.

Intrigued & inspired by this lithophane, we have made a 3D printable design. And we are very happy with the results. 

This design makes a perfect traditional 3D printed gift for Christmas. So let’s get into it!

dome lithophane

3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane

Requirements

Material recommendations

1

3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane

Personalize Your Lithophane

The first step for making your traditional dome Lithophane is by designing your own lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make it in ItsLitho. 

For the Traditional dome Lithophane we need to use the sphere shape, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image

To get the correct shape directly you can click on this profile and your lithophane will load instantly inside the ItsLitho tool. 

The only operation you have to do is to integrate your own picture to create your personalized lithophane and to adjust your min & max thickness depending on the filament you’ll use to print the lithophane. 

lithophane thickness

Every filament is slightly different, and therefore the minimum & maximum thickness could be different. We suggest taking a look in our store at what filament works well with lithophanes, and find which thicknesses work best for the specific filament.

Correcting your image

To ensure a proper fit of your image on the spherical Lithophane, it needs to have the proper ratio (Height:Length). For this model, the ratio should be 1:3,8, meaning the image should have a length 3,8 time bigger than its height.

Image ratio

After this first operation, you can play on image settings to improve brightness, contrast or any other parameter.

itslitho image options

2

3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane

Download & Print your files

After downloading your lithophane, we need to download the Tradi Lithophane Photophore model from Cults3D.

The download package contains:

  • 1 Roses Lithophane
  • 1 Plate
  • 1 Stand

Slice & Print your files

Now we got all the files we need, we need to slice & print the models. 

For slicing & printing your lithophane(s) we have written setting tips & provide you with free profiles here and multiple tips on how to tweak to perfection. 

For the Plate and the Stand, we suggest to print them flat on the building plate. No support needed. Nothing complex, just open, slice and print.

Traditional lithophane
lithophane plate

3

3D Printed Traditional Dome Lithophane

Assemble your 3D Traditional Lithophane

When all parts are printed, you can assemble the Photophore.

traditional lithophane parts

For the assembly, please refer to the following picture:

Assemble traditional lithophane

You just have to clip the plate on the stand and put the Lithophane on.

For the lighting, you can decide to use small led candle or Multicolor Puck led light in both Plate and Stand. You can also mix if you prefer.

lithophane dome display

You’re now ready to create your own amazing traditional tea light lithophane. Light up the your lithophane & enjoy the magic! 

Interested in more Christmas decoration? Click here for more Christmas creations!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Traditional Dome Lithophane – 3D Printed Christmas Gift appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> How To Make a: 3D printed Color Lithophane (2022 Update) https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/how-to-make-a-color-lithophane/ https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/how-to-make-a-color-lithophane/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2022 12:00:18 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=1364 In this guide, we will explain how to create a color lithophane with the ItsLitho Lithophane maker tool. It's essential to follow the guide because the colorful photo must have the exact dimensions of the 3D printed lithophane. We will explain you in this guide how to do this!

The post How To Make a: 3D printed Color Lithophane (2022 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

How To Make a: 3D printed Color Lithophane (2022 Update)

  • By ItsLitho
  • Last Updated: November 16, 2022
Lion-color-lithophane-guide-banner

How to leave everyone flabbergasted with your Lithophane? That’s right – Color lithophanes! Bring colors to your lithophane with this fairly simple method. 

Contents

3D Printed Color Lithophane

Create your own 3D Printed Color Lithophane

Lithophanes themselves are already stunning to make, but color lithophanes are even more surprising. 

No one is expecting a regular piece of white plastic to turn into a colorful detailed image.

Our method is simple and accessible to anyone. You only need one color of plastic, a piece of (transparent) paper & some magic from ItsLitho.

So let’s dive in, and begin with your colored lithophane!

3D Printed Color Lithophane

Requirements

Material recommendations

What is a color lithophane?

Normally, we print a lithophane with some semi-translucent filament plastic. When you shine a light through the lithophane a monochromic image will appear. It means that just one “color” with different intensities will show up.

Normally, we print a lithophane with some semi-translucent filament plastic. When you shine a light through the lithophane a monochromic image will appear. It means that just one “color” with different intensities will show up.

monochromic lithophane
Monochromic Lithophane - By Shawn Sadler

But with the colored lithophane, we want to express multiple colors as well as different intensity’s. 

With our simple method this can be achieved by using a piece of paper with the image behind the lithophane.

However, your original picture will not work. Why? Because the lithophane has intensity (brightness) information in it, due to the varying thickness of the lithophane.

Therefore, if you were to use the original picture, then the colors would appear different then the original colors.

Luckily, ItsLitho will automatically convert your image to a tailor-made image you can put behind your lithophane.

Tailer-made image for color lithophane
Tailor-Made image for the color lithophane

The intensity levels in the picture are removed, which may look weird on paper. But looks amazing when you put it behind your lithophane!

How to make a color lithophane lion preview

The tailor-made images downloaded in ItsLitho also have the exact dimensions of the generated lithophane!

This will spare you a lot of time resing the image to the dimensions of your lithophane. 

1

3D Printed Color Lithophane

Personalize Your Lithophane

First, create your lithophane using the ItsLitho tool. You can create your lithophane  in four simple steps:

Step 1 | Upload your image(s) 

Select the image(s) you would like to use for your lithophane.

Step 2 | Edit your image(s) 

This is optional, but you can enhance the contrast of your lithophane by adjusting your image. Even for the color lithophane, this can enhance the darker parts of your image.

Step 3 | Create your 3D model Lithophane

Enhance the contrast of your lithophane by adjusting your image. Even for the color lithophane, this can enhance the darker parts of your image.

Step 4 | Download your lithophane & Colorful image 

After you press the download button you’ll get a pop-up. Now your lithophane will be created! Here you will need the download your lithophane & color lithophane image.

You will get the following files:

  • 1 .stl lithophane file
  • 2 .jpeg files

You’ll get your tailor-made image for the color lithophane (ItsLithoColor_.jpeg). But also the original image (ItsLithoNormal_.jpeg), which also are the same dimensions as the lithophane.

We noticed that some users which are printing with a resin printer had better results with the original image. So we wanted to give users the possibility to try this out.

2

3D Printed Color Lithophane

Slice - Prepare & Print your files

Now let’s prepare the files. The jpeg file needs some extra attention to make it fit the lithophane. 

For slicing your lithophanes, we wrote a post that helps to slice & print them: Tweaking your lithophane to perfection.

For material tips, have a look in our store to see what kind of Filaments works well with lithophanes. We also show light sources that work well by displaying lithophanes. 

Prepare your Colorful Image

Before you 2D print your image, you want to make sure the dimensions are correct.

Many programs will try to fit your jpeg on the entire A4 paper. We don’t want this! The jpeg file has the exact dimensions, and therefore we want to keep them.

We used Paint for this. Yes, Paint.  

Paint has a feature we need to retain the dimensions of the image. Another plus side is that almost everyone has paint pre-installed on their computer. In the image below we have highlighted these settings!

color lithophane step by step guide paint
  • 1. Open the tailor-made JPG image you have downloaded, in Paint;
  • 2. When you open Paint, go to the File menu in the top left corner;
  • 3. Go to Printing;
  • 4. Then Page setup;
  • 5. Set the Scaling setting to adjust to: 100% normal size;
  • 6. Print your tailor-made image!

3

3D Printed Color Lithophane

Assemble your Color Lithophane

When both prints are ready, there is 1 thing left to do. Add your paper to the back of your lithophane. 

This can be done with a little bit of glue, glue spray, or even adhesive tape. Make sure to align it properly for the best result & that’s it.

Now you are all set to make your color lithophane!

color lithophane example 1
Color lithophane example 2

Color lithophanes made by Eric Ostler

Quick side note

The colorful can only be applied to plane shapes, arc and cylinder shape.

A spherical lithophane distorts the image and thus it’s not possible to map a flat sheet of paper on a sphere lithophane.

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post How To Make a: 3D printed Color Lithophane (2022 Update) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/how-to-make-a-color-lithophane/feed/ 3 3D Print your own Hexagon Lithophane – Hexagon Lithophane Box https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/3d-print-your-own-hexagon-lithophane-hexagon-lithophane-box/ Mon, 22 Aug 2022 12:00:03 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=9870 This is absolutely one of

The post 3D Print your own Hexagon Lithophane – Hexagon Lithophane Box appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

3D Print your own Hexagon Lithophane – Hexagon Lithophane Box

  • By Julien Bonnevie
Hexagon lithophane banner

This is absolutely one of our top 3D prints. The combination of the Nanoleaf concept with Lithophanes is just amazing. Learn how to 3D print your own Hexaleaf Lithophane Box!

Contents

Hexagon Lithophane box

Creating your 3D printed Hexagon Lithophane box

Most likely you have seen those cool hexagon-shaped lights with LEDs, that can hang against your wall. They are really fascinating to decorate your room with. 

But what if we told you, you can make your own Hexagon LED, but instead of a blank white surface, we put lithophanes on them?

That’s exactly what we did! We combined lithophanes & hexagon LEDs, and made it easy to make one yourself.

You can not only personalize them with your own photos, but you can also build the hexagon boxes exactly the way you like! 

So let’s get started & design your own 3D printed hexaleaf lithophane!

Hexagon Lithophane box

Requirements

1

Hexagon Lithophane box

Personalize Your Lithophane

The first step for making your Hexaleaf lithophane is by designing your own lithophane. If you have never done this, here is a quick Youtube tutorial on how to make one yourself! 

For the Hexaleaf we need to use the Hexagon shape, so let’s go make one!

Prepare your image

You can select the hexagon shape on our tool, but you can also click on this profile and load all the correct settings instantly. 

Important for this design is to make it fit the Hexaleaf box, so we want to make it 100mm in size. And we need 6 sides to make it a hexagon. 

itslitho lithophane maker shape options

It’s important to know which filament you want to use for your lithophane. Every filament is slightly different, and therefore the minimum & maximum thickness could be different.  We suggest taking a look in our store at what filament works well with lithophanes, and find which thicknesses work best for the specific filament. 

Correcting your image

If your image doesn’t fit the hexagon shape as well as you hoped for. No worries! We can change the image options. 

Image lithophane settings

2

Hexagon Lithophane box

Download & Print your HexaleafLithophane Box

After downloading your lithophane(s), we need to download the Hexaleaf Lithophane Box model from Cults3D.

The download package contains:

  • 11 Parts if you wish to compose it on the wall
  • 11 Parts if you wish to compose it standing up
  • 1 Part for connecting clips which will be printed upright for more solidity
  • 1 Hexagonal for a battery box
  • 1 Rectangular box for a battery box
  • 11 Frames for the boxes

Slice & Print your Lithophane

Now we got all the files we need, we need to slice & print the models. 

For slicing & printing your lithophane(s) we have written setting tips & provide you with free profiles here. 

It’s best to print your Lithophane, vertically on the build plate for optimal details. 

Hexagon lithophane slicer view

The Hexaleaf Box should be printed flat. Depending on the quality you are looking for you can print in layers from 0.12 to 0.28

In the image, you can see a Hexaleaf printed on 0.24.

Hexagon box slicer view & side view

For the link parts, it’s best to print them vertically, as shown below. With a thickness between 0.12 and 0.24.

hexaleaf links slicer view

3

Hexagon Lithophane box

Assemble your Hexaleaf Lithophane Box

When all parts are printed, you can assemble the Nanoleaf Lithophane Box
To do this, you’ll need the following requirements:

  • A led strip. We used a led strip including a remote control with a plugging socket.
  • Some glue
  • A pair of scissors (Optional)
  • Aluminum foil (Optional)

It will be necessary to clip the connections to the boxes, and possibly glue them

Assamble Hexaleaf lithophane Box
Hexaleaf connect all parts

At last, you can add the lithophane box frames. This will make the design look nice & clean!

hexagon frame

The last stages of the assembly will consist of installing your lithophane and fixing it using double-sided tape if necessary. And it’s done

Enjoy!

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post 3D Print your own Hexagon Lithophane – Hexagon Lithophane Box appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]> Turn an Image into a Cool 3D Model – (No Lithophane) https://itslitho.com/lithophane-guides/turn-an-image-into-a-cool-3d-model-no-lithophane/ Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:12:16 +0000 https://itslitho.com/?p=9935 By Control 3D Looking for

The post Turn an Image into a Cool 3D Model – (No Lithophane) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>

Turn an Image into a Cool 3D Model – (No Lithophane)

By Control 3D

Image to 3D print banner

Looking for an original way to convert your image into a cool 3D model? Then this fun 3D-printed image might just be for you!

Contents

Turn your image into a 3D model

Creating your own 3D Model from an image

Surely you know that one of the most popular 3D printing projects to do with your 3D printer are lithophanes. And if you are reading this post, maybe you have already printed some lithophanes! The results of these prints are magical.

But what if we told you, that you could combine the design of lithophane with a color-changing technique to create incredible 3D printed images?

In today’s post, we show you exactly how you can make your own – Super Easy – 3D printed Image and personalize it yourself.

Turn your image into a 3D model

Requirements

Luckily, there are more methods to achieve this 3D Print. Method 1 requires a dual-color printing technique. If you don’t have that, don’t worry, methods 2 & 3 will also help you to make these amazing 3D prints.

Method 2 requires you to insert a pause into your printing file, then switch the filament with the color you prefer.

And the last method, method 3, requires you to paint the thicker parts (with a sponge or brush). Surprisingly, this gives it a really cool effect, and doesn’t look any lesser than the other methods!

 

Method 1

Method 2

Dragon ball z photo
Method 1

Method 3

Painted Lithophane
Method 3 - by_sere_3d - Instagram

1

Turn your image into a 3D model

Design your 3D model Image

Prepare your image

It seems obvious, right?

The first thing you need to do is find an image you would like to use. It can be any real photo, drawing, illustration, or personalized image. In our case, we have searched Google Images and Pinterest for some cool copyright-free illustrations to find ideas to print like below. 

3D image example

We wanted to do a black-and-white project, so we looked for an illustration that would fit this idea. Remember that you can use all the colors and materials you want!

Design your image

As you probably know, Itslitho is the 3D design software to help you design Lithophanes. If you are not familiar with the tool, here is a quick Youtube guide that helps in the right direction.

However, today we are not going to use ItsLitho to make lithophanes. But we are going to use ItsLitho to make Multicolor 3D printed images! 

When you access Itslitho, you will find the following settings:

Upload Tab

Here we can upload the image, illustration, or photo that you want to 3D print.

Edit Tab

Once the image is loaded, you can make some adjustments without using external photo editing software. You could adjust parameters such as brightness or contrast to enhance the grey scaling better!

We recommend defining your image as well as possible. This will help to 3D print your image as clear & confident. So you want a high contrast (The difference between white & black parts).

Model Tab

This function is used to perform a ‘mapping’ of our image, generating a kind of ‘topography’ or relief by detecting the different grey levels of the photograph that we have uploaded.

This is the part where Itslitho generates your 3D model image, that we can tweak with various functions: for example in ‘Shape options’ we can modify the shape and dimensions of our frame or the base volume on which our photograph will be generated, as you can see in this image:

3D model preview

More settings that we recommend:

Shape options

With the minimum/maximum thickness option (Min thick/Max thick), you can decide how thick the black & white need to be. 

We have set the minimum to 0.32 & maximum of 3.5 millimeters. Remember that the more difference between the minimum & maximum thickness, the more margin you have to make the different gradients or colors of the image.

However, it could differ what works best for you, so playing with different thicknesses could improve your final 3D print. 

Shape options

Frame options

To add some flair to your 3D model image, you could add a frame in the outline of your illustration. This can also be adjusted in thickness & width.

Quality options

With these options, you can modify the mesh density (mm per pixel). The lower the mm per pixel, the more precision of the 3D model image. 

However, be careful with this option, because it will grow your file size significantly. Take this factor depending on the characteristics that your computer and your slicer can support.

The default value is already high & precise. We highly recommend increasing the number when your file size gets too big. Most of the time, you can’t even see the difference between 0.1 & 0.2 with your bare eyes. 

So to make your life easier, and from the slicer, we recommend keeping sight of the file size of your 3D model. 

Quality Options

Preview

This will help you to display your final mesh from different perspectives. 

Attributes

Want to display your 3D model image better? No problem, with the attributes ItsLitho offers a variety of different ways to display your 3D print. For example, you could add a small hook, so you could easily hang the illustration on the wall by activating the ‘enable hook’ option.

lithophane hook attribute

Image options

These options can be very handy when the image is not displayed exactly as you were hoping for. For example, if you use the circle shape, the image is displayed higher on the model. With these options, you can correct your image on the 3D model exactly how you want. 

Finally, when the image is fully adjusted, click on ‘download’ (if you have added attributes, select ‘Download lithophane + attribute’).

Download your Image STL

When you are happy with the preview, click the download button. You will get a pop-up with different options:

Lithophane button

This will download your 3D model image only. If you have used attributes we suggest the click on “Lithophane + Attribute”.

Attribute button

We can imagine it could be handy to download the attribute separately or only the attribute in some scenarios.  

Lithophane + attribute button

If you just want to download the whole 3D model design you have created, press this button. 

2

Turn your image into a 3D model

Slice & Printing Proces

Now we have our 3D model image STL file, we need to slice it!

For method 1 you will need to have a multiple-color 3D printing technique to 3D print these images. So make sure you have this technique on your 3D printer. If you don’t know how to do this, have a look at how to 3D print multiple colors with your 3D printer.

As said before, for method 2 you want to insert a pause to your 3D printing file after a couple of layers. Then, switch the filament to another color & continue the print. 

For Method 3 you don’t need to do anything special other than 3D printing the whole file in 1 color. 

3D printing an image

Slice & dice

At this point, it’s important that we place the image horizontally on the 3D printer bed (Unlike a Lithophane). We also need to think about what layer height we gonna change the color(s) in the 3D print. (method 1 & 2)

In our case, we used method 1, and we used three different colors: white, gray & black PLA. Remember that you can use all the colors you want to 3D print your image!

For this project, we have used the PrusaSlicer slicing software because I (Control 3D) find it simpler, more visual, and more direct than Ultimaker Cura. But you can use any 3D printing slicing software.

We have used these 3D printing settings:

  • Nozzle width: 0.4 mm
  • Line width: 0.44

If you want to 3D print an image with more detail, we advise you to use layer height 0.3 to get a better definition.

3

Turn your image into a 3D model

Final results

The most interesting about this project is that you can 3D print completely personalized images and photographs, and also customize the size, color, and shape.

Final result 3D print image
Youtube Channel of Control 3D

You can also 3D print large photos by dividing your 3D model into several pieces so it fits on your 3D printer bed. Later on, you can join them together with glue for example. 

These 3D images are perfect for decorating any space, wall, or surface. You can also use them as 3D printed gift ideas, invitations, posters, signs, and even business cards! A very creative and easy idea to print with your 3D printer!

Dragon ball z 3D printed image
Method 1

So, if you are looking for easy and cool objects to 3D print with your 3D printer, try printing 3D images: People will be amazed by your designs!

lithophane painted with litght
Method 3 with LEDs

You can see the full tutorial on Control3D’s Youtube channel, I hope you love it!

You can also enjoy more 3D printing articles on Control3D’s blog.

Tell me, What do you think about this project? I’d love to know your opinion!

César – Control 3D

Create your Lithophane now with ItsLitho

Get Started

Create your Lithophane

Get Started

You might also like

The post Turn an Image into a Cool 3D Model – (No Lithophane) appeared first on ItsLitho.

]]>