Lithopane - Make Your Own

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

Lithopanes are pretty cool. A variation of material thickness causes different shades in the base material.

The CAD data, and resulting physical object are terrible to look at. But, put a light behind it, and you essentially get a photograph.

There is a photo to lithopane converter online: http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/
Upload your own image and try it out.

Original skull artwork was found online: http://jonvilma.com/skull.html#gal_post_321_skull-8.jpg

A couple of suggestions:
1. Play with the lithopane software settings. You may need to toggle to positive/negative option to get the dark and light areas to be correct.
2. If you make a lithopane, it needs to be a translucent material. Opaque materials do not work.
3. The finer the layer thickness of the machine, the better the results.
4. Choosing a material that does not discolor with UV exposure will keep the lithopane looking good.

The one in my window has been there for about three years. It was made on an Objet Polyjet printer from Vero White. I really need to make a frame to help support it. Objet materials are not very stable in high heat (i.e. direct sunlight), and the model has warped a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithophane