Upload a photo and get a watertight, print-ready lithophane STL in seconds. Hold it to the light and the image appears — thickness becomes brightness.
No login · no watermark · validated watertight geometry · photos deleted after processing
The generator maps every pixel's luminance to a physical thickness: the darkest pixels become the thickest material (default 2.8mm — blocks the most light) and the brightest become the thinnest (0.6mm — glows). The mesh is built as a single watertight solid with a reinforcing frame, so it slices cleanly at 100% infill with no repairs needed.
JPEG, PNG, or WebP up to 10MB. High-contrast photos with a clear subject work best; the image is converted to grayscale, so color doesn't matter — luminance does.
The thinnest point (default 0.6mm) sets the brightest highlights; the thickest (default 2.8mm) sets the darkest shadows. A wider range means more contrast but needs a stronger backlight.
The generator builds a watertight heightmap mesh — dark pixels become thick material that blocks light, bright pixels become thin material that glows. Download the STL.
White or natural PLA, 100% infill, 0.12–0.16mm layers, printed VERTICALLY (standing up) so layer lines run with the image. Slow down to 30–40mm/s for clean thin walls.
A lithophane is a thin 3D print whose thickness varies with image brightness: held against a light source, thin areas glow bright and thick areas stay dark, revealing the photo. The technique predates 3D printing by two centuries — porcelain artists carved them in the 1820s.
White or natural PLA, 100% infill, 0.12–0.16mm layer height, and print it standing vertically — that orients the layer lines along the image instead of across the thickness, which sharpens detail dramatically. Print slow (30–40mm/s). Avoid translucent or dark filaments.
Printed flat, each brightness level becomes a visible stair-step of layer lines and the top surface gets blotchy infill patterns. Printed vertically, the extruder draws each thickness as a smooth continuous wall — the standard trick that separates crisp lithophanes from muddy ones.
Any LED source works: a cheap LED puck, a strip behind a frame, or a window. Warm white looks classic; cool white maximizes contrast. The wider your thickness range, the stronger the light you'll want.
Free, no login, no watermark. The generator runs a pre-validated geometry script — no AI tokens are spent, so it costs us almost nothing to run. If you later want full custom parts designed from a description, that's the paid PrintMakerAI editor.
Describe it in plain English — “a backlit frame for a 100×75mm lithophane with a slot for an LED strip” — and the PrintMakerAI editor generates real parametric CAD. Need to measure something first? Grab the free measuring kit.
Try PrintMakerAI freeMore free tools: all tools