Preview flat image on a cylinder

[pingywon]

Not a Lightburn question for sure. I am etching flashlight battery tubes. All is well.

Is there anyway to take the “flat” image in Lightburn and show it wrapped around a tube of my sizing? Preferably 3D even. So I can spin it around and see what the finished product is going to look like?

I know this might be a large ask. I have searched the net and only found like Photoshop methods that even still dont meet my need and if MS 3D Pain can do it I sure as hell cant figure out how.

Any help would be great!

[ednisley]

@pingywon

the “flat” image in Lightburn and show it wrapped around a tube of my sizing?

Perhaps a lithophane generator would help.

The general idea of a lithophane is to wrap a grayscale image around a cylinder, with darker pixels corresponding to thicker places, so that a light in the middle will reveal the image.

So the dance would go a little something like this:

• Export the LightBurn design as an SVG
• Convert SVG to PNG or JPG:
  https://svgtopng.com/
• Do the lithophane thing to get an STL model:
  https://www.lithophanemaker.com/
• Feed that to a 3D STL model visualizer:
  https://www.viewstl.com/
• Profit!

Stipulated: That’s not convenient, but (after some fiddling) it should get you there.