Wandy3D

Free tool · no account

Relief maker: image to 3D-printable STL

Drop a logo, a drawing or a photo. Brightness becomes height: set the depth and the base plate, check the relief in 3D and download the STL. It runs in your browser, and the picture never leaves your device.

A relief plaque of a mountain emblem

Our sample emblem in this tool's own preview. Not a photo of a print.

Drop an image here

JPG, PNG or WebP. It is read on this device and never uploaded.

Your relief

100 mm
3.0 mm
1.6 mm

What rises

Raised frame

Choose an image to start.

Free, no account. Built on your device.

Need real depth, not brightness?

A relief follows how light the picture is. Wandy3D can build a full 3D model from a photo: real shape you can turn around.

Make a 3D model from a photo
  • Free, no account, no watermark
  • The picture stays on your device
  • Watertight STL in millimetres

In short

What “image to relief” means here

The maker reads how light every point of the picture is and raises it by that much: white becomes the highest point and black stays on the base plate, or the other way round. You get a plaque that prints lying flat with no supports. It does not understand depth: a face in a photo will not come out as a sculpted face. For real shape, make a full 3D model instead.

  • 40–200 mm wide
  • Relief up to 10 mm
  • Base 0.6–5 mm
  • Binary STL, millimetres
  • No account

How it works

From image to plaque in three steps

  1. 1

    Choose an image

    A logo, an emblem, a line drawing, a piece of text or a height map works best. Your browser reads it on your device; nothing is sent to a server.

  2. 2

    Set width, depth and base

    Choose what rises, light or dark areas, how high the relief stands and how thick the base plate is. The 3D preview follows every slider.

  3. 3

    Download the STL and print it

    One closed solid in millimetres that lies flat on the build plate. No supports are needed.

Settings

The settings that matter

A relief is a base plate with the picture standing on it.

Width40–200 mm
The width of the picture; the height follows the image. A frame is added outside the picture.
Relief depth0.5–10 mm, default 3
How far the highest point stands above the base plate.
Base plate0.6–5 mm, default 1.6
The solid plate under the relief. Transparent areas of a PNG stay at this level.
What risesLight areas · Dark areas
A dark logo on white paper needs “Dark areas”; a white drawing on black needs “Light areas”.
Raised frame2–10 mm wide
A border as high as the relief on every side.
DetailStandard 0.25 mm · Fine 0.15 mm
The distance between two points of the surface. A file never gets more than about 840,000 triangles (about 520,000 on phones and tablets): past that the points move apart, and the panel shows the real distance.
SmoothingOff–2 mm, default 0.4
Rounds the steps between tones so that edges print as slopes, not as stairs. Turn it off for crisp lettering.
MirrorOff by default
Flips the picture, for a stamp or a mould that must print reversed.

Printing

Print settings to start from

A relief is an easy print: it lies on its base and has no overhangs.

We check the file (a closed solid of the right size in millimetres), not your printer, and we have not printed every combination ourselves.

Orientation
As it is in the file: base down, relief up.
Supports
None.
Layer height
0.12–0.2 mm. Thinner layers make smoother slopes.
Infill
15–20 % is enough for a plaque; use more for a stamp.
Two colours
Pause at the top of the base plate (the “Base plate” value, for example 1.6 mm) and change filament: the relief prints in the second colour.
Filament
Any. Matte filaments show the relief best.

Honest limits

What works well and what it does not do

Works well

  • Logos, emblems, coats of arms and coins
  • Text and line drawings with clear edges
  • Height maps, for example terrain
  • Silhouettes and high-contrast pictures

What it does not do

  • Depth. Brightness is not shape: in a portrait dark hair becomes a pit and a bright cheek a hill.
  • Lines thinner than about 0.5 mm will not print cleanly.
  • Cut-out shapes. The plaque is always a rectangle.
  • Colour. The file is one solid; a second colour needs a filament change.
  • Cropping or retouching. Prepare the image first.

FAQ

Questions about the relief maker

Yes. The tool and the STL it makes are free, with no account, no watermark and no limit on how many you make.

No. Your browser reads the image and builds the STL on your device; the picture is not sent to Wandy3D. Only if you press “Make a 3D model from this image” is it handed to Create, where it is uploaded when you press Generate.

Not a sculpted one. The maker raises light areas and lowers dark ones; it does not know what is near and what is far. A portrait comes out as a picture you can feel, like a lithophane without the light. For real shape, the Wandy3D engine builds a full 3D model from the photo; that is paid in credits.

Pictures with clear edges and few tones: logos, emblems, text, line drawings, stamps, coins, height maps. A transparent PNG is ideal: the transparent part stays at the base plate.

Switch “What rises” to the other option. A dark logo on a white background needs “Dark areas”.

Add a filament change in your slicer at the height of the base plate (the “Base plate” value, 1.6 mm by default). The base prints in the first colour and the relief in the second.

A 100 × 75 mm relief at Standard detail has about 244,000 triangles and is about 12 MB. Files are capped at about 840,000 triangles (about 520,000 when made on a phone or tablet).

Yes. The preview and the file are built on the phone itself. A browser without WebGL shows a flat height map instead of the 3D preview; the STL is the same.

Need real shape? Make a full 3D model

A relief follows brightness. The Wandy3D engine builds a full textured 3D model from one photo: something you can turn around, print as a figure or use in a game. It takes a few minutes. A new account starts with 250 credits, and a model costs from 30 credits.

Make a 3D model from a photo