Background
Lithophanes are normally artworks molded on porcelain. They can only be seen by shining light from behind it. The basic idea behind a lithophane is difference in density. The lighter parts of the images are printed much thinner than the darker part of the image. So, darker an image area, the more thicker it is printed and vice versa. When light shines through, the lighter parts allow more light to go through as compared to the darker part making the darker parts more prominently displayed.
The image shows an old ceramic lithophane. The delicate play of light and dark part is worth noting.
Lithophanes look very good when displayed and also makes great gift items.
I saw some nice lithophanes created in 3D printers and so wanted to try some of my own. I took an image of emperor penguins for my lithophane. This image is in public domain. I am going to show you how I created my 3D print in this blog. This seems to be a very easy process, and I hope that you also try it.
Preparation
Image selection is key for good lithophane. Selected image should convert well to grayscale. I selected the image below for my experiment. if you look at it, this looks fairly good in grayscale.
There are quite a few sites that allow you to convert image to 3D STL files. You can also use CURA to directly load an image. For this project I used lithophane makers website. I tried the following websites and both look very good.
- Lithophane Maker: https://lithophanemaker.com/
- Image to Lithophane: https://3dp.rocks/lithophane/
You can also use Photoshop to create STL files. This will give you the most flexibility, however it is also the most difficult of all the options.
The final result at the end of preparation is a STL file.
Converting to Gcode
Most 3D printers need a gcode file to print. We will be using CURA to create the gcode. Normally with print experience, you will have a fairly good idea for the settings that works best for your printer and filament. For me, I have used the following settings.
- Printer – Anycubic i3 Mega S
- Filament – 3D Solutech Real White 3D Printer PLA
- Bed Temperature – I normally set this to 60. This seems to work quite well
- Filament Temperature – I use different temperature settings for different filament brands. For the white filament I used in this project, the preferred nozzle temperature is 205 C
- Layer Height – 0.2 mm (time ~7 hours) and.0.3 mm (time ~5 hours). For the first draft I just went with 0.3 mm layer height
- Infill density – 100%
- Bed Adhesion – I used Raft in this case. I do not use raft for any project, but I wanted to have it as a base for the frame. Raft gives me a ready to use base
I believe rest of print parameters are not important here. Final step is to slice this file and get a gcode.
Result
What remains now is to send it to the printer and wait. As I did not want to wait for 7 hours to see my results, I printed the draft version with 0.3 layer height.
Photo above does not justify how it looks in reality. Placed near the window, it shows the emperor penguin family in all its glamour. I am sure I am going to create a few more of these lithophanes based on how good it looks. Hope you find this useful and also try it out. Ciao for now!