Customizable Lithopane
by MakerBot, published
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Summary
Click "Open in Customizer" to turn the image of your choice into a Lithopane! We used the Mona Lisa, but you could use any photo you want. The Lithopane tool generates a 3D model that looks like a rough terrain map.
Download the file, print it on your MakerBot Desktop 3D Printer, and you've got a picture perfect pane to hang on your window.
Three cheers for the lithopane pioneers on Thingiverse, such as cymon and pp3dpNL! For more information on this old art form, check out the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithophane
Print Settings
Rafts:
No
Supports:
No
Resolution:
.10
Infill:
100%
Instructions
Upload an image, check the invert colors checkbox and create a Lithopane. For best results, upload a square image and print using a light colored plastic at 0.2 mm layer height and 1 shell.
Once printed, hang your picture in a window.
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All i get is #<RuntimeError: Failed to get https://www.thingiverse.com/download:385465 403: Forbidden>
Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or its the thing. Bummer
this customiser is bollocks and has never worked for me either mate !! ..
i made all my lithos here>> http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/
i got fed up trying to get this newfangled rubbish to work , so i found a better way .. if you need any instruction on how to use
go here >>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spRBCR9m8aQ
peace out \m/
I will have to try this tomorrow! I have been trying different changes to get it to work without luck.
Hope I can get one made!
The Customizer app isnt working all the time so i manage to do this offline with open sdcad
1 download and install openSDCAD from here: http://www.openscad.org/
2 download the scripts needed https://www.thingiverse.com/download:385465 - https://www.thingiverse.com/download:54848 - https://www.thingiverse.com/download:121626
3 Create 2 folders named utils and write in the same place with uploads_45_59_14_a8_ae_lithopane_new.scad and move write.scad to write and build_plate.scad to utils
4 Go to http://customizer.makerbot.com/image_surface?image_x=100&image_y=100 , upload your image select invert colors and copy paste the numbers on a .txt file in the same folder with the uploads_45_59_14_a8_ae_lithopane_new.scad and rename it to .dat
- Open uploads_45_59_14_a8_ae_lithopane_new.scad change the settings as needed and replace the image-surface.dat with the one you created. (you need to edit the script)
- Click render (f6) and after it finished rendering save the stl.
Thanks to MichaelAtOz for finding the script files and tbuser for finding or making the .dat conversion script.
cant get this to do jack .. dont bother!!! im off to http://3dp.rocks/lithophane this one sucks ass !! :(
Guys, since the owner of this is not responding to anyone, just use this online software to generate your lithopane stl files and then remix it to get your final desired print. http://3dp.rocks/lithophane/
some openscad modules are missing, but the program works anyway:
utils/build_plate.scad
write/Write.scad
where can I found these files?
I can't get it to load at all but I think this may be my computer side. Going to reboot and see if it works.
I would really like to get this working but can't get Cura to slice it right. It leaves "holes" in the model, basically not printing the first layer solid. I have infill at 100% and tried a lot of other settings. Just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Can anyone share if there is a trick to getting the slicer to generate this correctly? Thanks!
tried 16 layer on .1 resolution. But i am getting "craters" in a few places. Looks like the extruder stayed in one position or dipped down.
dont know whats causing this.
anyone know? have a solution?
what are the optimal settings?
100 percent infill?
more layers=better detail??
This doesn't work for me at all. I'm really puzzled, because I can get the surface function to work fine in OpenSCAD, but when I try to use it on Thingiverse I hit the "choose file" button, select my file, and then nothing happens. I've even tried on sample .dat files included with the objects, so I know they are supposed to work. Anyone else have this problem? Any solutions? I wanted to make my own customizable image-based object, but need to verify that this capability actually works first.
open the scad file in openscad, insert the proper
image_file = "yourfile.dat";
you need a proper dat file, that is an image converted in numbers
is there a way i can get the code for converting the images so i can run this on openscad on my computer to make a larger object?
the openscad code presented here works with the surface command that's limited to 100x100 pixels.
In any case, the surface command accepts also .png images. (image_file = "yourfile.png";)
I tried with color images too, it works, but you need to adjust manually the height value
//height = layer_height*number_of_layers; this is the old code line
height=0.1; // I put this value manually, since with color images openscad calculates the heights according to a formula using RGB values.
Somebody needs to use this but in dollar bill format. You could customize the value of the bill, the text, the background image, etc.
I think that would be really cool
ive spent the last 2 days trying to get the customizer to work but every time i try to run it i get the following
<JSON::ParserError: A JSON text must at least contain two octets!>
does anyone know how to fix this or what i am doing wrong
Worked for me, can you describe what you were doing?
always write your email like "buddyboy3dprints AT gmail DOT com" when posting publicly.
just downloaded the opens cad file and it's using modules
use <utils/build_plate.scad>
use <write/Write.scad>
can you point to where we can find these modules (if they are open source)
can you also explain the format of image-surface.dat, is it bitmap?
Woops... Forgot the 100% infill... That's a 5 hour print down the drain...
Worked out great- I tried a couple of different prints and was very pleased! Thank you so much for posting this!
i have a question for you , what was ur settings for the successful prints you did ?
It now times out for me every time, so I need to buy some proper Lithopane software...
hi all how can i make it work offline can any one help me on that i tried that
it did'nt work for me either until i switched my browser from explorer 9 to google chrome
HOW to you make the pictures to appear darker. I have tried a few pics and they are all coming up pretty light. Any suggestions?
I normally use 'the gimp' to increase the brightness of the background and lower the contrast, so stay 'lighter' and the foreground stay 'darker'. I think that you can increase the number of layers or the layer height to make the result darker.
TOPOGRAFICS™ are similar to these, check them out here:
this worked great and was easy enough to do...thank you! i was a little unsure of how to at first but once i realized i needed to log in and goto your page and then click on "Open in Customizer" then go to my pic file......it became a piece of cake :) very cool!
<errno::enoent: -="" directory="" file="" getcwd="" no="" or="" such="">
Every time I try generate a new litho I get this error. Whats going on</errno::enoent:>
Works for me. Is your .dat file in the same directory (but I would expect an error msg). Try a # in front of surface()??
A little bit more banging my head at it made me realize that I was not effectively changing the file extension. I have windows 7, which hides extensions, so my file was really named "image-surface.dat.txt" Once I scrubbed the extension it worked. Thanks for helping a n00b though.
What version of OpenSCAd are you one? I tried what you did (.txt) and got a warning msg in the console "can't open .DAT file ..."
I am using 2013.06. It was weird, I got that message the first time i tried to render it, but if i pressed F5 again it went away, so I wasn't sure what was going on.
Yeh, looks like a bug with the file caching, I'll log an issue.
This is a great thing to print, I have made a lamp to show them off if any one is interested it at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:119984http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Sorry if I missed it, but having scanned the docs I have a question, is this application looking at the full range of pixels in the image and normalizing across the available range of 0 to 1? For example, if an image only has greys from black to mid point, will it still get a full range of 0 to 1, or only 0 to 0.5
"The Z axis will be between 0 and 1 based on a 256 color grayscale range"
Looking to understand if it is worth pre-processing images for a full range of grey before submitting to the app.
Thanks.
Couldn't do it. From Firefox, entered "customize", uploaded a .bmp image of me mom, checked "email me when done". Never got an email. Never saw any response that anything was happening. What'd I do wrong?
Automatically posting everybody's Lithophane as a new "Thing" makes it extremely difficult to see if anyone's actually made a revised, actually new Thing based off this design. It's so difficult to navigate Thingiverse as it is, I think you guys are really opening the floodgates here.
Yes, you can disable Publishing as a new Thing, but it's set to Publish by default and I suspect the majority of folks don't notice or think about it. I'd like to see that feature disabled by default.
If you don't want that hole at the top, setting it to 0 still leaves a ball. Set the hole size to -5 (negative 5) and it'll remove the loop as well.
I made one in four parts and glued it together so It could be big, but I used the other one with no border/hanger
Checkout all the photos in the remix and Made. Worked for me.
Yes indeed. Looks good indeed. 0.2mm, really that thick? Got to give it try soon! Great idea.
I have to admit, I was skeptical about this print but it is truly fantastic. I printed the Mona Lisa and it did not look impressive until I put it in the window. WOW, Very Nice Job.
could you make one without the frame, I would like to make one broken into multiple pieces and then assembled, like a 1:1 Mona Lisa :)
See http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:78719http://www.thingiverse.com/thi... options to get rid of hanger and border.
I built a cnc router with the intent of making lithophanes. I still haven't had much luck with it for that purpose but this is great. 3D Printing rocks. Thanks guys.
A point of UI. Shouldn't the default action be for the SCAD file to treat the dat in reverse so that dark is dark. I shouldn't have to check invert the colors to get them to come out correct.
this would be a cool way to make a quick 3D logo on something. i'm gonna try this
It would be great if the loop on top was optional.
You can set the hole size to 0 but there is still a tiny bump.
It would be easiest to totally remove the tab when hole size = 0.
You can set the hole size to -5 (negative 5) and it'll remove the loop as well!
It would be great if the loop on top was optional.
You can set the hole size to 0 but there is still a tiny bump.
It would be easiest to totally remove the tab when hole size = 0.
Same thing here, Safari 5.1.9, os 10.6.8.
I got to use Firefox.
What happens exactly? It is working for me in Safari 6.0.2 in OSX 10.7.5.
A click on "Choose file" button does nothing.
Safari without extensions, last update available for 10.6.8
I found the problem, unfortunately Safari < 6.0 does not support the HTML5 features it uses. Since Safari 6.0 and and Firefox and Chrome have supported it for a while, fixing it for Safari 5.1 might be pretty low priority for now.
So is there a Safari fix for this, or should I download Firefox? Thanks for your help.
So is there a Safari fix for this, or should I download Firefox? Thanks for your help.
I'd love to use this new image uploading feature in a customized Thing of my own, but I can't get the SCAD file to work on my desktop. When I download the attached SCAD file and update the image_file variable to point to a local image, I get nothing. Sometimes I get an odd fragment in the center of the lithoplane. When I upload that same image to through the customizer app online, it works.
Any tips on getting the surface function to work with images offline (i.e. on the desktop)?
I've added a tool to help generate .dat file contents so you can test your script with some image data offline: http://customizer.makerbot.com/image_surfacehttp://customizer.makerbot.com... Also see the new docs at: http://customizer.makerbot.com/docs#image_surfacehttp://customizer.makerbot.com...
Doing my own digging I've found the answer. You'll need to instal GIMP and then use this plugin: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:35373http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Load a pic into GIMP, desaturate, export as .DAT file. Remember keep the image's dimensions small or openSCAD will collapse like a wet taco.
Yeah, Customizer will only allow up to 150x150, anything over that and OpenSCAD will start to overload.
Doing my own digging I've found the answer. You'll need to instal GIMP and then use this plugin: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:35373http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Load a pic into GIMP, desaturate, export as .DAT file. Remember keep the image's dimensions small or openSCAD will collapse like a wet taco.
I'm working on some documentation today... basically it is using the surface function in openscad, which means you need a .dat file, not an image file. Creating the .dat from an image is not something openscad can do on it's own. I'll be making a page in the customizer docs that you'll be able to use to build a .dat so you can test scripts offline.
Does that mean that the Thingiverse servers are automatically converting uploaded image files to DAT files? Or has the surface function used by the Customizer app been rewritten a little bit?
When I upload my script to an unpublished Thing, it works fine, just not locally. I've been able to do my testing that way, but now I'm just curious :)
Yeah Customizer is converting the image into a .dat and then feeding that into OpenSCAD.
In the description Lithopane s/b lithopHane.
Thanks for the shout out. I'm excited the customizer can take external files now. Opens up some real possibilities.
What is the system behind "image_surface"?
Is there a way to use the openSCAD offline? Say, at a Faire or a Con?
Yes. It's called "OpenSCAD." It was a program before it was a web app.
I can't tell if you are trying to be funny or mean. I'm referring to the system MBI is using to turn jpgs into dat files compatible with the openSCAD surface() method. But in either case "thanks" for your "help" :-)
Ignoring the other post, I'll point out that the answer is to use GIMP (for example) to convert the image to a DAT file, which OpenSCAD's Surface function can use as input.
I made a lithophane lamp by combining 4 lithophanes and connecting them in Sketchup, I just uploaded it:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:75229http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Been trying to get various other packages to work well for ages, thanks for doing this, must give is a try later :) Very nice work Makerbot!
Tip/suggestion : Isn't it the normal thing to print these vertically maybe requiring a brim feature on the thin base to take better advantage of the XY resolution instead of the Z layer height?
Instead of repeating myself I'll just link to my blog: http://joesmakerbot.blogspot.com/2013/01/figuring-out-lithopanes.htmlhttp://joesmakerbot.blogspot.c...
Sometimes printing vertically works well, sometimes not. Definitely worth testing more.
That's what I always do. Vertical printing is a challenge but the pictures look much better.
In my experience it actually looks worse, ABS cracking aside. I can't explain why but laying them down works great. Just be sure to print 100% infill and get your layers as thin as you reasonably can. (I do 0.15mm)
ABS cracking is usually due to printing at too low of a temperature
And lithophanes look even more amazing from a DLP printer (mine can print even at 0.0125 mm layers, amazing details) or when milled. Only milling takes a lot longer than a 3D printer.
Three cheers for me :-) I've never been called a pioneer, I like it. But aren't we all pioneers around here with our 3D printers?
But even people that are used to 3D printers are amazed by these lithophanes when they hold them in the light.
Love that you guys rolled this out! Awesome, insanely useful customizer! Time to start playing with it....
This is awesome. I love that you added the ability to upload an image as a surface file to Customizer.
To save people time, here's the code:
// Load a 100x100 pixel image.(images will be stretched to fit) Simple photos work best. Don't forget to click the Invert Colors checkbox!
image_file = "image-surface.dat"; // [image_surface:100x100]
It loads as a surface file, allowing you to use the Surface function in OpenSCAD to take a matrix of values and generate a surface with those heights. Perfect for lithopanes!
fyi, docs are updated at http://customizer.makerbot.com/docs#image_surfacehttp://customizer.makerbot.com...
Bonus: Also made an image_array widget.
And online tool to generate .dat file contents for testing: http://customizer.makerbot.com/image_surfacehttp://customizer.makerbot.com...
This is awesome. I love that you added the ability to upload an image as a surface file to Customizer.
To save people time, here's the code:
// Load a 100x100 pixel image.(images will be stretched to fit) Simple photos work best. Don't forget to click the Invert Colors checkbox!
image_file = "image-surface.dat"; // [image_surface:100x100]
It loads as a surface file, allowing you to use the Surface function in OpenSCAD to take a matrix of values and generate a surface with those heights. Perfect for lithopanes!
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