Converting Jpeg photo to STL

Starting into CC Pro for 3D. Have been asked to take a photo and cut it in 3D. Any advice on the best software to convert the photo?

I usually trace a photo (that is create a line drawing) to remove distractions and then either build it component by component or use ai to build an STL. I have found that both methods work better if you reduce a photo to lines and/or vectors before building the STL. I think the best ai is SculptOK.com which will handle a line drawing like a champion. (Do not use their enhancement tools…just your line drawing) Building it component by component is very satisfying and will result in a cleaner finish.

One approach is a halftone:

or, for the limitations of a pixel image of a 3D thing:

though some folks have been successful using a Large Language Model:

For working with a “real” 3D file see:

c.f.,

2 Likes

Has anyone used AnyConv?


I don’t recall using that specific app, but I haven’t had much luck using file conversion. I do something similar to @cheu. I’ve used both my own photos and AI generated images. Sometimes i have the images converted to gray scale, and sometimes just use the full color image. As @cheu said, I’ve found Sculptok to be the best at building a downloadable stl file. I use the free version, which still allows you to make adjustments. You WILL need to play with it to get the hang of it. The attached image was AI generated and converted through sculptok. I downloaded it, imported into CC and added the tool paths. Have fun with it. Sculptok uses the “token” system, but if you log into it daily you get free tokens to use.

5 Likes

@flynnie

Nice detail in that carve!

Thank you (20 characters)

That looks great,what size bit are you using?my guess that it will take a reasonable time

Thanks. It’s a 1/32 bit. I’ve done multiple carves from photos and usually end with a small bit to bring out the details. Yes, they are long, I overkill the step over so they can be extremely long. This one was 12 hours.

1 Like

I have EasyCreate. It is pretty impressive but doesn’t allow for successive changes. If you don’t like the image you get to start over.

I am working on a horse model and it either turns the image the wrong way or puts weird chains on the hooves of the horse. I get the dumb chains even if ai say not to put them or don’t alter the hooves. I suspect it has some image of a horse with chains on the feet in its library of things to copy from and just can’t break away from it

1 Like

An absolute game-changer for me, was ScupltOK (forum won’t let me post the link by itself.It is ScuptOK dot com). This was the missing piece of the puzzle, because I wanted to carve unique things, but I lack the talent to make an STL in Blender or tools like that. You can upload an image into SculptOK and it’ll generate a greyscale heightmap, and if that looks good, it’ll make it into an STL for you, to import into your CAD program. I tried to make use of STLs in carving projects using Carbide Create, but ended up switching to VCarvePro, with great initial results!

Thanks, there doesn’t seem to be any preview of what I would be getting if I bought into it? I uploaded a jpeg to see what it was like and it only shows me my uploaded image…

Make sure you are in greyscale heightmap (I think that’s what it is called), then click on “sculpt pro” for image type, eventually click “draw” which should be free to start. Then, after it draws, click the “3D Preview with watermark” button, to see what it decided to do with the elevations it interpreted in your image. If you want to keep it and use it in VCarve, click 3D Preview, I think, it spends a few credits and takes the watermark away.

If you had uploaded a color image initially, you will still see it behind the STL. You won’t see what the STL-only looks like until you open it up in another program: Blender, VCarve, etc…

and here’s an invite link for SculptOK if you like what it does for you: Sculptok depth map generator

Thank you for the reply. I must be doing something wrong. These are the steps:

  • “Upload an image”
  • Skip enhancement
  • “Take a peek, tweak if you like…”

And that’s where it sits, with just my uploaded image showing and nothing to click, other than “Create Model”, which I don’t have any credits for…