Image to STL converter

1. Drop your image above (PNG, JPG or WebP). It's read on your device, not uploaded.
2. Choose One colour for a logo or drawing in a single colour, or Several colours for multi-colour artwork. The background is found and left out for you.
3. Pick what to make: a sign (artwork raised on a plate), a keychain (outline base with a ring), a stencil (artwork cut out of a plate) or a cookie cutter.
4. Set the width in millimetres; the height follows the image's proportions.
5. Download an STL (one solid body) or a 3MF with one part per colour, ready to assign filaments on a multi-colour printer.

The image is turned into outlines: every area of one colour becomes a flat shape, raised to a height. That suits pictures with clear edges and a few flat colours:

• Logos, icons, emblems and badges
• Line drawings, silhouettes, clipart and handwriting scanned in black on white
• Pixel art and simple cartoons

Photos have soft gradients rather than edges, so they trace into blotches. For a photo, the lithophane maker is the better route: the picture appears when light shines through it.

• Threshold (one colour): pixels darker than this become the shape. It's set automatically from the image; move it if thin lines go missing (raise it) or the background creeps in (lower it).
• Invert: uses the light parts instead, for a white logo on a dark background.
• How many colours (several colours): the number of colours to keep, the background included. Pick the number you can see in the artwork; more only adds shades from blurred edges.
• Smoothing: sharp keeps corners crisp (text, pixel art), smooth rounds off the pixel steps (round logos, hand drawings).
• Detail: how many pixels are traced. Higher keeps small features of big images; lower is quicker and smoother.

Transparent parts of a PNG are never part of the model, so a logo saved with a transparent background traces cleanly. Specks smaller than a fraction of the image are dropped, and stray edge pixels between colours are cleaned up before tracing.

• Start from the biggest, sharpest image you have. A 1000-pixel logo traces far better than a 100-pixel thumbnail, and JPG blocks around edges become bumps.
• Mind thin lines. Lines narrower than about two nozzle widths (0.8 mm on a 0.4 mm nozzle) may not print. The tool tells you how much of the artwork is that thin and can thicken it for you, or make the model wider.
• Two colours with one nozzle: download the STL and change filament at the top of the base (the height is shown under Colours).
• Already have the logo as an SVG? Use SVG to STL instead: an SVG's outlines are exact, so nothing has to be traced.

The keychain puts a ring on the left, top or right with the hole size you choose. The stencil adds bridges so the insides of letters don't fall out. The cookie cutter follows the outer outline, mirrored so it cuts the right way round, and can press the drawing's inner lines into the dough. For words and names, the name tag generator has fonts built in.

3D-printed cookie cutters aren't food-safe in the strict sense: layer lines trap bacteria. Print in natural filament, use them briefly, hand-wash in cool water and replace them regularly.

Cura opens JPG and PNG files as a height map, where brightness becomes height: good for textures and lithophanes, but logos come out as sloped bumps rather than crisp raised shapes. Tracing outlines, as this tool does, gives flat tops, sharp edges and one part per colour. More ways to turn pictures into prints are in how to turn an image or logo into an STL.