u/xanton

Made this over the last while and it's on the App Store now, so sharing it here. Heightmap takes a photo and turns it into a height map / depth map on-device, no upload, no login, no subscription. You get a grayscale depth output plus a 3d preview you can light and rotate around.

Under the hood there's a few on-device depth models to pick from depending on what you're after, plus controls to shape the relief, smoothing, background textures and hand-paint brushes. For output you can save a grayscale png for UV and relief printers, or a 3d mesh (stl, 3mf, obj with the photo as a color texture). It's localized in 17 languages and native, no Electron.

I built it scratching my own itch for relief printing on a UV printer, but a few people use it just to pull depth maps for other stuff. It's $2.99 one time, no in-app purchases. https://apps.apple.com/app/id6778490403

Happy to answer anything, and if the relief or export side feels off let me know, that's the part I want to get right.

Problem: To print a photo as relief on a UV or 3d printer you first need a clean grayscale height map, and pulling a usable one out of a normal photo is fiddly.

Comparison: The usual route is a web tool like 3dp.rocks or other online depth-map generators that upload your photo and give you one result with little control, mostly aimed at backlit lithophanes. Heightmap runs on-device and is built for relief, you get a few depth models to choose from, grayscale where white means high, plus controls and hand-paint brushes to shape the result, then export as png or a 3d mesh (stl, 3mf, obj with the photo as a color texture). It's also localized in 17 languages and native, no Electron.

Pricing: $2.99 one time, no subscription, no in-app purchases. https://apps.apple.com/app/id6778490403

Changelog: App Store version history, each release lists whats new: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6778490403

AI Disclaimer: Code Completion

Sharing a little macOS app I built called heightmap, since this is pretty much the crowd it was made for. It takes a photo and turns it into a grayscale height map on-device, white means high, which you can send at a UV printer for layered relief. There's controls to shape how the relief sits, gamma and contrast on the height, smoothing, background textures, and brushes to fix the spots the model reads wrong.

I built it around the eufyMake E1 workflow (5mm, white = high) but the output is just a grayscale, so it should drop into other UV setups too. If you'd rather go the model route it also exports a 3d mesh as stl, 3mf or obj with the photo baked on as a color texture. Everything stays local, no upload and no account.

It's on the Mac App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6778490403

Id like to hear from people actually running UV relief, whether the height response feels right or if you end up fighting it. Thats the part im least sure about.