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tool to make an stl from 2D image? (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello friends,

my local fifth graders are doing a series of astronomy lessons which uses this mythical artifact as a focus. The class teacher thought it would be neat to try and 3D print the artifact and let the kids actually handle it vs the print version they are working with now.

The teacher got about this far before hitting issues that prevented printing. I have done a bit of 3-D printing on my ender so I gave it a try but I wasn't able to get even as far as the teacher did by the look of it.

Is anyone aware of any foss tools that might facilitate this or have time to help get us to a printable .stl from these 2d views? It's not supposed to be very thick just a sort of broken disc thingy. TIA!

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[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wait the teacher got to the point they have a 3d file right?

If so this seems like a job for Blender.

https://daler.github.io/blender-for-3d-printing/printing/export-stl.html

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I should probably ask them again why it wouldn't print they told me on the phone but i have the memory of a goldfish all I know is it ultimately wasn't printable.

edit: I sent them an email asking for the .stl they made thanks for the good idea

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

I would just about bet Meshy AI gave a “non-manifold” model. 3-D models that are intended to be digital assets can have that issue, and I would suspect it’s easier for an AI to produce them versus properly manifold objects ready to be made solid.

There are ways to fix them though, and Meshy even has their own suggestions (Blender and Meshlab).

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Definitely agree, it probably was a non-manifold mesh. There are several ways to fix this, but one of the easiest is to load it up in Blender, apply a voxel remesh modifier to it, and then re-export.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

When I load a non manifold mesh into my slicer I get "error, click repair" a windows dll starts that repairs the mesh. It's weird that Windows does this instead of the slicer but I've never taken the time to investigate because I'm busy on the next print.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Do you know the Nebra Sky Disk? This one has a nice science trail. The book about it is awesome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disc

https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/effa0e78-5e3f-4109-a522-fdacfc7205f6.jpeg

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

no I did not, I have never heard of sky discs I assumed the artifact was just something the teacher made up. I sent them the link to this post so they will probably see this thank you for sharing!

edit:

The two looters received sentences of four months and ten months, respectively, from a Naumburg court in September 2003. They appealed, but the Appeals Court raised their sentences to six and twelve months, respectively.

LOL

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Hete is the book about the entire story. Well written by a journalist and a scientist. This Sky Disc rewrote many assumptions of the bronze age in Europa.

E.g. Still they don’t know how they could figure out the stars as it is too cloudy in Europe for those observations. They assume a very ancient trade connection to the Middle East where those star images where known already. And some of the gold for the star decorations where from England and Turkey (if I remember correctly) Worth a read :)

https://www.amazon.com/Sky-Disc-of-Nebra-Plaque/dp/B00A4N7QLE

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

If you are starting with nothing then maybe a lithophane conversion on the photo

https://3dp.rocks/lithophane/ https://itslitho.com/ https://github.com/muldjord/lithomaker

Just some options. 3dp.rocks works well from my experience. That would at least give you a starting point. I’d see if there is some way you can scale it on the z axis of the features are point straight up to get more depth on what the lithophane provides.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

3dp.rocks

I feel betrayed as a geologist by this bait and switch.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

thank you I will check this out I knew this community would know!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Another option might be Bambu Labs lithophane tool on their site. I haven't used it but I have used the Keychain maker to make dozens of STLs from 2D images/logos and it works great.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I know there is a workflow template for ComfyUI that has a model that can convert 2d images, or multiple perspectives from photos, into a 3d model

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

This takes an images and makes an STL. There are others out there like BackflipAI that does some "intelligent" destermination when converting a flat image to 3D.

https://imagetostl.com/convert/file/jpg/to/stl#convert

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

https://www.printables.com/model/806091-nebra-sky-disc-himmelsscheibe-von-nebra

Nebra sky disk free STL file

Another one on a different site

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2308424/makes

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

If you have multiple views of the object and can take a video, NeRF and Gaussian Splatting tools can form a 3d model if you have an NVIDIA GPU. I don't know if there are good user facing tools for this though (I mess with these things in my research), if you have a technical background you might be able to get NeRF Studio to work.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Displace modifier in blender

Alternatively, an online lithopane maker website.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I swear a long time ago I did something like this using the microsoft 3d viewer or something. Some microsoft 3d modeling thing

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Microsoft 3D Builder. The most useful software MS has made in the past 15 years. But of course they killed it. You can still find its installer to download from 3rd parties. Its one of the tools I sometimes need and spin up a windows VM for.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

That's actually stupid. I thought it was pretty cool. Not a fan of proprietary software or anything but they made it very easy to use.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah, it wasn't the best at anything, but it did a few things very easily and was simple to work with. I use it to create 3D from 2D images. To subtract 1 model from another one to create negatives, and repair some STLs.

Things that I haven't found a FOSS option that works as simply and quickly.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Recommend Trellis

this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
75 points (97.5% liked)

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