3DB #61 Converting an Image to a .stl File

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Hello and welcome back to 3D Printing Basics. This is episode number 61 and in this episode we are going to be talking about how to transfer images like PNGs and JPEGs into 3D models so that they can be 3D printed.

As someone that runs a business, I have quite a bit of experience in this because one side of my business is a custom product that I sell and that... product is geared towards businesses so a lot of businesses that order from us they want to put their logo on the stand which isn't a problem at all we offer that and that's one of our main selling points but what happens a lot is these

businesses they will not have a 3d model or vector file of their logo they will only have an image of it so a png a jpeg maybe a pdf something like that and so what we have to do is we have to take that image and convert it into a 3d model file and so with that being said i definitely have a lot of experience in this particular topic and that's why i wanted to discuss it today so with that being said let's jump right into it

I wanted to start off by saying that my process is not the only process when it comes to doing this. There are lots of other ways to do it, but over the years, this is the system that I've found works for me, and it's the quickest and easiest and most accurate way.

to be able to convert these images into high quality stls and that's the main thing that we're looking for is the accuracy a lot of these websites that will convert images to stls sometimes they're not super accurate sometimes they're fuzzy and So it took a lot of trial and error, but I was able to find the process that works for me. And that process starts in an image editor. I always download the customer's image of their logo.

And I'd say probably 97% of customers' logos are multicolored. And that isn't going to work very well if you are using a website like I use.

to convert images online you're gonna need the logo to be all one color so that it's very high contrast and it is consistent when it comes to converting so i always go into photoshop or whatever app that you have and i make the entire logo black and against a white background to make sure that it's, again, very high contrast and very easy for the software that you use or the website that you use to be able to pick up on what needs to be converted.

And so that's step number one. Make sure that your image is entirely blacked out.

so that there's no especially brighter colors if you have like a dark gray or a dark blue that's probably fine i would still use it change it to black anyway but if you have something like yellow in there it's not going to pick it up and it's going to have a really hard time converting that so Make sure that you have very dark colors in the logo that you're trying to convert and make sure it's against a white background So it's very high contrast

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Start your next project with PCBWay and see the difference for yourself. Head over to PCBWay.com today. The next thing that I do is I head to pickSVG.com. It's spelled P-I-C-S-V-G dot com. And this is the website that I have found works best for me and my needs. But like I said, feel free to try out. other websites, other software. There's tons of them out there that convert images to STLs or SVG files.

That's just, this is just the one that I found that that works best. And some of the reasons that I like this website the best is because it doesn't offer just one plug and play solution. There are different options. You can see when you upload a file and you upload a picture.

There's different options. There's detail options. You can go between great and strong and filters. There's edge one, edge two, edge three, edge four, internal one, two, and three. And I'd be lying if I told you I know what the differences between these are.

but I almost always go with the internal three option for filters that seems to give the logo that I'm trying to convert the best detail. And it also gives you a nice little preview. You can switch between the different filters and the different detail settings, and it'll give you...

a nice little preview of what your SVG is going to look like and that's another thing that I wanted to point out is this website that I found it doesn't convert directly to an STL and that might be a problem for some of you that aren't using this as part of a design You might want to find a website that converts it straight to an STL so you can download it and then you can put it straight into your slicer and not have to worry about going into a different modeling software like what I do.

What I do is I download the SVG files and then I upload it into my CAD software so that I can add it to the... to the product that i sell and being able to use it that way so that's why i find this website to be the best use case for me because i don't need stls and svgs in my opinion offer more detailed files when you're trying to convert, especially these more complex, higher detailed images. So that's something to consider if you're going to be doing this.

And like I said, once you've double checked that all the settings are correct for me, then I just straight download the SVG file and then I bring it to my CAD software.

drop it in there, add it to the product that I'm selling, and then you're pretty much good to go. I download the STL file from there, which now includes the product and the converted image that I'm using, and then I bring it straight into Orca Slicer. And it's good to go. No problems. I've never had a problem with it over the years. I've definitely refined this process. I used to have a different website that I use, but I didn't like it anymore because once you downloaded.

Once you downloaded the STL files, it started zipping the files. And so you download zip files and that was just an extra step that I didn't want to have to deal with was unzipping the files and also having some problem with. some problems with quality issues and so this is kind of the process that works for me it's really quick and easy if you know what you're doing it can take you just a couple minutes to convert a Image to a nice STL file that is

Very easy to see. It's very complex in a good way, very high detailed, and something that you can definitely use in your 3D prints. And that's very important if you're looking to start a business because when it comes to 3D printing, it needs to be perfect. I feel like... 3D printing has kind of the quirky, tinkering, toys kind of reputation to where you really need a solid product in order for people to push past the fact that something is 3D printed.

We meticulously have refined our 3D printing process to make sure that we get as nice of a looking product as possible while also at the same time making sure that we refine our... image conversion as well because if you have a janky logo that doesn't look good maybe it's a little fuzzy or the detail isn't as sharp as it needs to be that's also going to make the product look not as good so

That's why we took such a long time in refining this process. And I wanted to share this with you because... Like I said, I believe 3D printing is an open source community. I think everybody has a right to share everything with everyone. And that's another reason why I love this 3D printing community so much is that no one really tries to hide anything.

If people have come up with a good idea or a new process or anything, it often gets shared. And like I said, Orca Slicer, the slicing software that I use, it's open source and it makes changes directly based on what its users suggest in their GitHub. Just something that I think is really awesome in this industry is people being willing to share their ideas, share their suggestions, and being met with open arms rather than being shut off in any kind of way.

That's just another reason to get into 3D printing. And with that being said, that's all I have for you guys today. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I know it's a little shorter than maybe we're used to. But I hope you did learn something and now you're going to be really good at converting images, whether it be online or images that people send you into high quality STL files that look great when you're printing them. Thank you guys so much for listening. I appreciate it.

Thank you guys so much, and I'll talk to you next time.