Lithophane Sphere Maker

Instructions

Design spherical lithophanes with this tool. There are many options for your lithophane. I will go through the lithophane settings from top to bottom. You can make a moon lithophane with the moon in the "background" everywhere that your picture is not by putting a check mark next to Moon Background. You can flip your picture upside down so that you can hang it on the cylindrical base instead of sitting on the base by putting a check mark next to Flip Image. The Crop Image option allows you to crop you image and get any aspect ratio picture that you want. This makes it possible for the Picture Angular Height and the Picture Angular Width to both be adjustable.
The Lithophane Resolution is the same as in the other lithophanes. It is the distance between unique heights on the lithophane at the "equator" because the distance actually stretches as you move up and down the sphere. The Sphere Diameter is the diameter of the inside of your sphere. The Picture Angular Height is the angle that your picture takes up. 180 degrees is the maximum and the maximum decreases as the cylinder on the bottom takes up more of the angle there, or as the hole on the top increases in size. The Picture Angular Width is the angle that your picture wraps around the sphere horizontally. The maximum is also 360 degrees, but you can control this dimension only if you allow the picture to be cropped by putting a checkmark next to Crop Image. The Maximum Thickness and the Minimum Thickness are both the same as in other tools - they determine how thick the lithophane is across the entire picture. The Cylinder Outer Diameter sets the outer diameter of the cylinder that is below the spherical lithophane. As this value increases, the cylinder must move up the lithophane so that it still intersects the outer surface of the sphere. To get rid of the cylinder, set the Cylinder Outer Diameter to 0. The Cylinder Height is the height of the cylinder, and the Cylinder Thickness is the thickness of the cylinder. At the bottom of the cylinder there is a ledge. It's height is set by the Cylinder Thickness and its diameter is set by the Cylinder Ledge Outer Diameter. The Cylinder Lege Outer Diameter should be set to something smaller than the Cylinder Outer Diameter. If you want a hole at the top of the sphere, then define the Top Hole Outer Diameter to be greater than 0, and a hole of the specified diameter will be created.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please ask the Lithophane Maker User's group on Facebook, and if you don't get an answer there then email me at [email protected]. Enjoy!

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