3D Printed Greyscale Photographs - Quite amazing

[Eddie]

I haven't seen something like this done before with such detail and precision. A woman named Amanda Ghassaei has taken traditional greyscale photos, and modified each pixel based on its shade. She made a 3D model of the photos by making the darker pixels thicker than the lighter pixels. She then printed these photos out on a Objet Connex 500 3D printer, and the results were quite mind blowing. When the 3D prints are backlit they are extremely details 3D renditions of the original 2D photos. Read more about this incredible method at http://3dprint.com/13856/3d-printed-photographs/

Yes this is a 3D print:

[Feign]

Well, it's a lithopane, and they aren't exactly new, even in 3D printing... However, these ones are exceptionally well done.

If the name seems falmiliar, Amanda Ghassai was the person who came up with 3D printed music albums, as well as a number of other interesting things across several fields. I wouldn't be surprised if these used her "genetic image processing" algorithm to optimize them for the lithopane process.

[bshadown]

im a photographer in real life.......and my jaw almost hitted the floor..... i have never seen something so detailed and well done, in fact this image is like checking a normal grayscale photo and the ammount of detail and sharpeness is austoning, actually the fur is one of the hardest thing to photograph, so yeah, this is one hell of photgraph (or lithograph if you are technical). cheers

[repkid]

These are absolutely beautiful, now i have to finish my 3d printer.

[SandraCanning]

Great article. Here is a little bit on my own journey as a fine art photographer 3D printing lithophanes of my own photographs. World’s First 3D Printed Photography Art Exhibit http://bit.ly/WitfjO

Unlit Tree in Key Biscayne Lithophane web.jpgTree-in-Key-Biscayne-3D-Printed-Photograph-Sandra-Canning-web.jpg

[LambdaFF]

Yes her work is amazing. What's even more impressive is that she released the Processing libraries and stuff to do it yourself @home (well the STL part at least). For the printing I have yet to try something like that on a FFF, not too sure of the result.

[JohnA136]

There is a customized on Thingiverse right now to make your own Lithopanes. If you print in fine enough detail, they come out quite well. We have been playing with it for a couple of weeks. The one in my avatar is 100 0/0 fill and .060 mm layer height.