Studio

Some conversions have settings you cannot judge without looking at the result. This is where those live.

The converter is built for a one-shot job: pick a file, pick a format, download. That is the right shape for almost everything, and nothing here replaces it. It is the wrong shape for a conversion with dimensions you cannot picture in advance, so this page puts the result in front of you while you set them. Nothing is uploaded here either; the mesh is built in this browser, and the preview draws the file you are about to download.

Advanced jobs

1. Choose a job and a picture

Image to reliefTurn a picture into a printable plate whose thickness follows its brightness. This is not a 3D model of the subject; it is a relief, the same idea as a lithophane.Image to cut-out shapeTake the outline of a shape and push it through space: cookie cutters, stencils, keyring tags, a logo standing proud of a plate. The picture inside the outline is discarded.

It never leaves this browser. .png, .jpg accepted.

2. Shape it

Output formatSTL is what slicers expect. 3MF records its own units. OBJ opens in modelling tools.

Plate width 100 mmThe height follows from the picture's shape, so this sets the whole footprint.

Base thickness 1.5 mmSolid material under the relief. Below 0.6 mm a plate cracks when handled.

Relief height 3 mmHow far the brightest parts rise above the base.

Invert: dark becomes highWhat a backlit lithophane wants, because thick plastic passes less light.

Smoothing 1 passesSoftens single-pixel spikes a nozzle could not print. Each pass blurs a little more.

Detail 200 samplesGrid samples along the longest edge. Higher is finer and makes a much larger file.

3. Check it, then take it

Choose a picture to see the result here.

What a relief is, and is not

Brightness becomes height. A light part of the picture rises, a dark part stays low, and the result is a plate with the image in its surface. That is the same idea as a lithophane, and it is not a 3D model of whatever the photograph shows: nothing here works out the shape of a face, a building or a landscape. A photograph of a person produces a plate with a face-shaped pattern in it, not a bust.

The cut-out shape is a different job again. It keeps only the outline and throws the picture away, which is what a cookie cutter or a stencil needs. One limitation is worth knowing before you print: an enclosed hole is filled rather than cut, so the middle of a letter O comes out solid.

Everything else

Every other conversion this site performs runs in the converter, which is faster for a job with nothing to adjust. They are grouped here so the whole catalogue is reachable from one place, with the count of formats that convert locally in each family.

Data59 formats convert locally
Document46 formats convert locally
Image36 formats convert locally
Archive32 formats convert locally
Vector & CAD32 formats convert locally
Video19 formats convert locally
Audio16 formats convert locally
Ebook8 formats convert locally
Font7 formats convert locally

Prefer to start from the job rather than the format? Recipes chain real routes together for named outcomes, and the compatibility explorer answers the question of having one format and needing another.