PIXEstL

What is PIXEstL?

PIXEstL makes color lithophanes: prints that show a full-color photo when light shines through them, built from thin stacked layers of a few filament colors. It can also make flat pixel-art images. It is a free, MIT-licensed command-line program written in Java.

You describe your filaments in a JSON palette file, with the color each one shows at different layer thicknesses. The project explains how to calibrate that by printing thickness samples and photographing them against a light. PIXEstL then writes a ZIP with one STL per color layer, a base plate, a white texture layer and preview images. Recent releases improved a mode that prints seven colors with a single Bambu Lab AMS.

It suits makers with a multicolor printer who want color lithophanes without a subscription tool, and who are comfortable editing a JSON file and running a command.

What you can make

• Full-color lithophanes
• Pixel-art images
• Per-color layer STLs for AMS printing

How to use PIXEstL

1. Install Java and download PIXEstL from the releases page
2. Edit the palette JSON with your filaments
3. Run the program on your image with your size settings
4. Load the per-color STLs in your slicer as one object and assign filaments
5. Print and light it from behind