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lithophane

We 3D printed a giant lithophane photo of the Mandalorian

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It’s not really a secret that we’re big fans of 3D printing here at DIYP. Whether it’s printing out handy gear that we’ll use all the time, functional workhorse tools, or making the cameras themselves, 3D printing is just a lot of fun and it’s worked the way into the lives of the DIYP team in a big way. And speaking of big, big’s where we’re going this time.

We’ve covered how to 3D print lithophanes on here before. They’re a way of creating a form that produces an image when you shine light through the back of it. The thinner parts are brighter and the thicker parts are darker, producing the contrast you need to see the image. Well, when Tronxy reached out to see if we’d like to try their Tronxy XY-3 SE 3D printer, a giant lithophane was what we knew we had to do.

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Lithophanes – How to 3D print your photographs

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When I was first told “Hey, you should 3D print some of your photos” a couple of years, I thought they were mad. 3D print a photo? Then I did a little digging and found out that you can actually 3D print photographs. Sort of.

They’re called lithophanes, a pretty old technique that’s been around since the early 1800s. Of course, they didn’t have 3D printers back then, they made them out of porcelain. These days, though, we do, which makes them much easier to create. So, I finally got around to making some.

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3D print your photography to make backlit lithophanes

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I have my first 3D printer arriving next month. Ok, technically it’s a robot with a 3D printing head, but this is something I’m absolutely going to have to try. When it comes to regular prints, I just leave it up to my lab. They can produce them far less expensively and far more consistently than I can do at home. But this looks pretty cool. A 3D printed Lithophane.

Essentially, a lithophane a print which uses depth to mark the different brightness levels of your image. When it’s lit from behind, the thinner parts let through more light than the thicker parts. And so, the image comes to life. In this video from Daniel DeArco, we see exactly how it’s done.

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