3D printing Lithophanes (backlit illuminated photos)
I recently created a Lithophane of Luke Hemmings from 5SOS for my daughter by 3D printing an image converted into a height-map.
If you want to do this yourself, find a contrasty image, convert it to black and white and then convert it to an STL using the following site: http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/.
Be sure to set the image settings to Positive Image and set the height in the Model settings to 4mm (material translucency dependent) and set the Vectors per pixel to 5. Add an optional border (mine was 5mm) and a stand to make it easier to print.
Once you have the STL you must print it standing up. If lying down the grayscale range will be compressed to only a few shades because of the layer height limitation. Print no faster than 3000 mm/min (50 mm/sec) and use no in-fill and around 6 shells to make it nearly solid. My printer printed the image fine without any supports.
If you want to know more about Lithophanes then see the Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithophane
They were originally made out of porcelain and have been around for hundreds of years.
This looks interesting. Did you try other colors or is white the best choice?
I did. I tried grey (which didn't let in enough light) and blue (which also defused the light to much).
Here is a candle guard I made which is also in white. I tried this in grey and it was nowhere near as good.
Wow this looks even better then the other print. I need to do some prints like this.
It looks even better with the candle behind it :)
You really should try it, they are great fun to make.
Very cool, I love printing these!
Me too. I just wish there was a way of printing them quicker without impacting quality; they take an age. There is definitely something magical about them though.
Join our Discord Channel to connect with us and nominate your own or somebody else's posts in our review channel.
Help us to reward you for making it ! Join our voting trail or delegate steem power to the community account.
Your post is also presented on the community website www.steemmakers.com where you can find other selected content.
If you like our work, please consider upvoting this comment to support the growth of our community. Thank you.