3D Printable Glitch Art! (Tinkercad)

Like most people with a 3D printer I had a lithophane phase fairly early in my learning journey - they're super impressive, they show off what a printer can do and they make great gifts! I printed loads of them!!

Then I just kind of stopped.. I guess the novelty wore off a little but they're just so cool so I've been trying to think of a way to do something a bit different with them and make them fun again!

I was trying to think of something that kind of tied in with the techy nature of the hobby and hit on Glitch Art.

(According to Wikipedia) 'glitch art is the practice of using digital or analog errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices'

Now, this doesn't really quite qualify as glitch art by that definition but it's got the same feel to it and was fun to make!

I think it gives the litho a bit more interest when not lit as well!

3D printer

For the Print:

• White PLA - I find Sunlu White PLA is good for this but any of the white PLAs that have that slight translucency will work well! The more opaque ones can work but you may need a stronger light source to get the full effect.
• Other colours - Use any colours you like but bear in mind, this will be lit from behind so you might want to use complementary colours - I used blue and orange in a trial run and it looked good until I lit it - then the blue looked like a muddy green. :(

Light Source - This will depend a bit on how you want to display your litho - I'll be putting mine in a window but you can use LEDs, electric tealights, a nightlight etc.

1st step is to create the actual lithophane stl - I used The Girl with a Pearl Earring for this instructable. I like the play of classical art crossed with modern art crossed with 3D printing - it's a whole fun mess and it's a nice, recognisable image too :)

You can use any image you like - photos, comic strips, drawings etc. but for the 'glitch' element to work best, I'd suggest something with a plain background and a defined shape that's easily recognisable (faces are good for that reason!)

Once you've picked your picture, you'll need to head over to It's Litho (or feel free to use your preferred tool) to create the lithophane.

• Click 'Get Started'
• Click the 'Upload' tab in the top left and upload your image
• Click onto the 'Model' tab
• Make any adjustments you like here
  • I just changed the frame option to none and resized it to 100x135mm as that fit the space I'd be displaying it - If you're planning to put it in a frame or other display, make sure you make it the correct size for that
  • There are all sorts of options including a lamp attachment in the attributes panel so have a look around and see what you like best
• Once you're happy click the download button at the bottom right
• You'll get the pop-up shown in the pictures here
  • Click 'lithophane' and your stl will download after a few moments
  • If you'd like it in colour, also click 'color lithophane' and your jpeg will download
  • If you added any attributes like the lamp attachment, you'll need to click 'Attributes' too

So we have our art but where's the 'glitch'?

• Head over to PhotoMosh or again, feel free to use another tool if you prefer!
• Click 'Load File' and upload the same image you used for your litho
• I like the 'Edges' filter for this as pictured but feel free to play around a bit and see which effects you like best.
  • What you're aiming for is a black and white image as shown, where the white parts are like an outline of the image and will be the 'glitches' in your printed art.
• Once you're happy with your image, click 'Save' and your image should be downloaded

Unfortunately PhotoMosh doesn't have an invert colours tool so we'll need to open our image somewhere else to invert the colours ready to make this printable - I used Adobe PhotoShop Express for this as it's quick and free.

• Upload your picture and click 'Art Effects' in the menu on the left
• Scroll through the menu on the right then click 'Effects'
• Choose 'Invert Color'
  • If your outline isn't looking very string, you may want to make some further adjustments - you can use the 'Adjust Image' tool from the left-hand menu to adjust contrast etc.
• Once happy, click 'Download' on the top right of the page and download your edited image

Now we have our image, we need to make it printable!

This is a pretty simple step but I've separated it just for clarity :)

We need to convert our image to something that can be printed - I use convertio for this, but like all the other steps, feel free to use your preferred tool.

• Either drag and drop your edited image onto the page or click 'Choose Files' and select your edited image
• From the dropdown menu select SVG
• Click 'Convert'
• Once conversion is complete, click 'Download' and your svg file should download

Last step and definitely the most fun one!

It's time to log into Tinkercad!

If you have any trouble keeping track of where these glitches will sit on your finished litho, try placing a square shape or square hole and resizing it to be the same size as the litho you made earlier (this is shown in the last picture above) - unfortunately lithos tend to be a bit too big to import into Tinkercad so we can't work on top of the actual file but this should help you ensure all your 'glitches' will fit onto your finished piece :)

• Start a new project and click the 'Import' button in the top right of the screen
• Either drag and drop the svg file we made previously or click 'Choose a File' and select your svg
  • When importing, I enter the same measurements as I used for the litho (100x135mm) so it'll fit when we import it into our slicer
• Now, adjust the height of your 'glitch' shape, it will need to be at least .4mm taller than the highest point on your litho which, by default is 3.2mm so I adjusted mine to be 3.6mm tall. (all 3.6mm tall shapes are shown in pink)
• Now duplicate your 'glitch' (Ctrl+D) and move it so that it's offset a little from the first 'glitch'
  • You can repeat this as many times as you like but I like to leave some space for the original image to show through so only wanted 4 'glitches'
• Adjust the height of some of your glitch shapes to be a further .4mm taller than the first so, in my case, I made 2 of my shapes 4mm tall. (all 4mm tall shapes are shown in green)
• Now, have some fun! I placed a lot of small square shapes, some 3.6mm tall, some 4mm tall and scattered them to look like pixels or other 'glitches', I made some a little bigger and stretched some out, even had some overlap the bounds of the litho as shown but get creative and find what works for your image!
  • Bear in mind, if you want to display this in a frame then you might want to avoid putting 'glitches' too close to the edges of your litho.
• Once you're happy, select all of your shapes and click 'Export' then choose 'STL' and your stl should download

Perfect, we have our litho and our 'glitches' - now we need to combine them and get ready to print!

Let's start by opening your slicer of choice!

I've used Prusa Slicer, Cura, Creality Slicer and Simplify 3D previously and you can do this using any of those and, to the best of my knowledge, most other slicers. Unfortunately this would go on forever if I tried to do a step-by-step for every slicer so I'll be sticking with PrusaSlicer here but please just ask if you're struggling to find any of the options in your slicer - I'd be happy to help!

• First let's import the lithophane stl
• Next, import your 'glitch' stl
  • If necessary, reposition your glitch stl so it sits where you intended on top of your litho
• Once they're lined up, export the plate as an stl
  • This just combines the 2 stls into one model so the slicer doesn't get confused trying to print 2 overlapping stls - you can use other tools to do this like MeshMixer or Blender etc but most slicers have this option and it save you swapping between programs :)
• Now delete the 2 separate stls that are on the plate and import the new, combined stl

Now it's time to slice the file - I never tell people what settings to use as we all have different printers etc. so for the most part the settings are up to you but as it's a litho you'll want to set infill to 100% (so you can't see the infill pattern when it's lit) and for our filament changes to work, you'll need to use a layer height of .2mm (or a factor of .2 such as .1 would also work)

• Click 'Slice Now'
• Once the file has sliced we need to add some filament changes (unless you're printing all in one colour in which case, you're ready to export your G-code and print!)
  • Move the slider through the layers until you reach layer height 3.4mm and click the '+' symbol to add a filament change.
  • Add a second filament change at layer 3.8mm
• You'll need to click 'Slice Now' again then 'Export G-code'

Now you've done the hard work, it's time for the printer to take over!

As this litho will be printed flat on the bed, it's very important your print bed is clean and correctly levelled or it might curl up or come unstuck - I recommend using IPA to clean your print bed but check what your print surface is made of first as it can damage some surfaces.

Once you've set your print off, there's not much you need to do until it reaches one of the filament changes - at this point, your printer will pause and usually parks the nozzle away from the print so no filament oozes onto it, you'll just need to unload the colour it was printing in and load the new colour, it should then reheat the nozzle, purge the old colour and resume printing in the new colour.

If you want to avoid filament changes and are printing all in one colour it should be pretty straightforward to just run a marker across the top of the 'glitches' to colour them as those areas will be raised above the rest of the litho - I tried this with a Sharpie and a Posca marker on my trial run and would say Sharpie looks better once the litho's lit as it doesn't fully block the light coming through like paint does.

Side Note: Just as a slightly interesting point to make for those who might enjoy this and want to print more lithos - when not adding filament changes etc. to a litho print, you'll usually have best results printing them vertically - it's a more challenging print and more prone to failure but you'll get a much smoother gradient in the shades like this and the details will usually come out crisper too.

This is just an extra little step in case you wanted a colour lithophane!

I personally prefer not to add colour as the extra paper layer tends to fuzzy up some of the details and I quite like the white but I'm well aware that's just personal preference which is why I wanted to include this step!

Rather than I rush through the steps here though, I suggest you head back over to It's Litho and follow their tutorial as it's a very clear step-by-step to follow.

You may already have the jpeg from the step where we created our lithophane so can start at step 3 :)

Woo! You've made your own lithophane glitch art!

Nice :)

Now, just find the perfect spot to display it and enjoy your work!

I'm considering this to be a bit of a work in progress - it came out better than I expected for a first go at the design but I feel like it's still missing something so if anyone has any fun ideas to improve the design, please let me know!