Browser-local converter
JPG to STL converter
Convert a JPG into a printable relief on your own machine. Pixel brightness becomes height by a rule you control, with the depth, base and physical size all set in millimetres. What you get is a relief of the image, not a model of its subject.
Drop your JPG files here
STL, OBJ, PLY, GLB, glTF, 3MF, SVG and DXF, plus PNG and JPG as height relief. Nothing is uploaded: files are read and converted inside this tab. Checking what this device can handle...
Queue
No files yet. Drop models above, or use the file picker.
Output
Units
Size and placement
Repair and cleanup
These can change the shape, so they need a before-and-after review before export.
Inspection
Add a model to see its dimensions, mesh health and estimated volume.
What this JPG to STL conversion does and does not do
- A JPG becomes a height relief: brightness maps to height. It does not become a 3D model of whatever the photograph shows, because a single photograph does not record that shape.
- JPEG compression adds blocky artefacts in smooth gradients, and those artefacts become bumps in the surface. A PNG of the same image gives a cleaner relief, and a greyscale source cleaner still.
- Relief height, base thickness and width in millimetres are all yours to set. The values shown are a starting point rather than anything measured from the image, which carries no depth at all.
- The image is resampled to a grid whose size and triangle count are shown before conversion.
- Height comes from Rec. 709 luminance, so a red and a green area of equal brightness end up at the same height.
- The output is a closed, watertight solid with a flat underside and a skirt around the edge.
Troubleshooting
The surface is covered in faint square patches
Those are JPEG compression blocks, faithfully turned into geometry. Re-save the source as PNG if you have the original, or lower the detail setting so the blocks average away.
The relief is barely visible
Raise the relief height, and check the contrast of the source. A low-contrast image varies over only a fraction of the available height whatever you set.
The print is too fragile
Increase the base thickness. A relief with little or no base is only as strong as its thinnest point.
It came out mirrored
Check the orientation controls rather than the image. The relief keeps the image the right way round; a slicer or printer flip is the usual cause.
Questions
PNG or JPG for a relief?
PNG, when you have the choice. It is lossless, so the surface follows the image exactly instead of following the compressor. A JPG works, and the compression artefacts are the price.
Can it read the depth from a photo?
No. Brightness is mapped to height, which is a deliberate transform, not depth estimation. A dark object close to the camera reads as low, not near.
Is my photo uploaded?
No. The browser decodes it and the conversion runs in a Web Worker in this tab. There is no upload endpoint anywhere in this project, and the Content Security Policy blocks cross-origin requests.