Create DEPTH MAPS from AI images for 3D LASER ENGRAVING

In this video Im going to share a little process I came across while researching depth map generation from AI images for laser engraving. The best part is you dont need to learn any crazy 3D rendering software.
Disclaimer: As mentioned in the video, I didn't create this program, so please use it at your own discretion. I've been testing it out myself for a little while but am unaware of its full capabilities and limitations yet.
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Tiling ZoeDepth LINK: github.com/billfsmith/tilingz...
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AI application I used: www.midjourney.com/
The Laser I used (xTool P2): geni.us/xTool-P2
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//// MY CURRENT SETUP /////
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-- Diode Lasers --
xTool S1 (40w): geni.us/xTool-S1-Laser
AC Infinity Cloudline S4 Fan: geni.us/V5vJQpB
Lightburn: lightburnsoftware.com/
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-- Co2 Lasers --
Boss LS-1630: bosslaser.com/ls-1630-co2-las...
xTool P2: geni.us/xTool-P2
Filtrabox Compact: bosslaser.com/compact-filtrab...
S&A CW-5000 Chiller: geni.us/85pr
Lightburn: lightburnsoftware.com/
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--Fiber Laser --
OMG 60w JPT MOPA: www.omglaser.com/products/fib...
AC Infinity Cloudline S4 Fan: geni.us/V5vJQpB
Lightburn: lightburnsoftware.com/
#laserengraving

[@stevewalsh5479]

Excellent - short and straight to the key points! Most KZbinrs would have dragged this out to 30 minutes. Thank you!

[@roman_fla]

I am hooked on watching your videos for the last couple of hours. I love the conetent without the filibuster.

[@makeorbreakshop]

Oh this is excellent! I've been wanting to do some type of video on AI images for lasers and didn't even think about the engraving side with depth maps!

[@matthysloedolff]

To quote Bill & Ted: "excellent!" Thanks for the quick tutorial, Justin.

[@justinlaser]

Haha thanks man!

[@circleofowls]

I'll have to try this on my CNC, thanks!

[@Limitlessengraver]

looks cool. And thank you for the tag 🙌

[@justinlaser]

No problem love your stuff!

[@derekwright2388]

Brilliant! Now for some playing!

[@justinlaser]

I need to get my fiber set back up this gives me so many new designs to try.

[@MichaelTodoran]

I love this tutorial. Zero fat. Thank You!

[@exploreviewworld]

Nice ,thanks for your great video

[@TKs3DPrints]

this is exactly the way i do it but i take things a couple steps further. i tend to use the depth map for my ruff cut.. then i will check the engraving if its black then i will inverse the original image and engrave back over it again to bring back details and clean the engraving up.. if the engraving is clean i will then just engrave the original picture again as its 2nd pass to bring the details back.. i have been using this for over a year. mdf is great to do it on though be careful the deeper you burn the less dense the mdf is due to the way its made under rollers.. i also use a diode laser.. but was looking into fibre laser at the start but prices out of my range.. this saves me posting a video.. thanks for uploading

[@b-rad7708]

You should still post. Sounds like a much better method of retaining the details which is why I really wanted to learn more about depth mapping. To me the details are what make a depth map, a depth map. Idk, this process is def interesting. It just seems not that worth it, with all the details gone. Better yet just "seams" like one part of a bigger picture. lol, I really do mean that tho.

[@mfmageiwatch]

This is something I was trying to get MJ to make for me for almost a full year now. Very exciting!

[@mfmageiwatch]

Oh hmmm, idk if i trust this setup, but at least it means it's possible and a more trustworthy option might be coming along the pipeline soon!

[@justinlaser]

The project has been around for a while seems fine. Its all running on virtual machine anyways.

[@JamesDeanDesigns]

Nice, useful video. Thank you

[@justinlaser]

Thank you appreciate it!

[@SwissplWatches]

awesome video thankyou!

[@RoseKindred]

This was interesting, thank you. I do something similar using Blender and another for making texture maps. It is a few more steps though.

[@6r4metroman]

Thanks for this, looks really interesting as a one stop does all. I do get a runtime error but after the prompt says to restart the session it works fine, 20mb file took 6mins, I'll be trying this tomorrow on my 60w jpt. Thanks again 🙂

[@infographie]

Excellent.

[@JAYTHEGREAT355]

Great video . 🎉.

[@justinlaser]

Appreciate it!

[@Thecraftyblacksheep]

Love this.

[@justinlaser]

Appreciate it!

[@vallesan]

🤯 awesome. I got try. I have a 80W CO2 laser. Thank you

[@justinlaser]

Youll be blasting deep designs with 80w

[@vallesan]

@@justinlaser Justin. Thank for reply. Only have a month with my laser . The air assistant is the little air pump from factory. Is ok ? Or I need 30 psi from a compressor?

[@onjofilms]

Thanks.

[@pw3111]

Great video. Thanks. The only problem is it would stop half way through and say it has an update and I would have to start again. It finally worked by making sure I didn't get out but just restarted.

[@DMT4Dinner]

Ty

[@storytellerHD]

This info is quite a gem. Thank you for the quick run through. We have several high powered Epilog lasers and found this useful fo certain projects. We're looking around the page and we don't see the technical specs or limits on file size (MB or GB), type (.PNG, .TIF. .JPG, Raw, etc.), or resolution (DIMS). Do you happen to know?

[@stephen5426]

the files I get from Midjourney are PNG's. I have a co2 60watt it worked (for the most part) on some rough cedar but severely lacks detail. As stated in video this more for fiber lasers with brass or other metal coins or it also works on slate tile.

[@kbqvist]

Really interesting! As I'm sure you are aware, color images can be converted to black and white, which is the way I need to use depth maps, in many different ways, resulting in different black and white tonal variation. Do you have a favored way to make this conversion to bw?

[@aaronstanley6914]

this worked fairly well the weird thing is it scewed the image so the top right corner is lower than the rest of teh design which is weird

[@higherstandardspc]

Awesome video, well spoken and concise : ) I suppose a 10 watt diode laser can't do this? Either way I enjoy your content and subscribed ; )

[@justinlaser]

Thanks! 10w most likely cant just because its not powerful enough. But I use my diode lasers using grayscale mode to do nearly photorealistic image engravings. Thats where a weaker diode laser shines.

[@higherstandardspc]

@@justinlaser Kind of what I thought : ) thank you for the reply, I will follow and maybe I get lucky and see a video how I might do the photo realistic engraving. Thank You Again : )

[@Jwalk9000]

This would also be great for creating custom brushes for blender a zbrush.

[@justinlaser]

That sounds awesome. I need to learn Blender.

[@harky957]

hi.. thanks for the tips. ive just tried it but there doesnt seem to be much detail in the high res image?

[@lizardfreakboy]

I have done a few of these this exact way. And seems that the final depth map looses so much detail that it just looks terrible with mt jpt 50 watt.

[@BUY_YT_Views_611]

This is KZbin gold

[@justinlaser]

🙏🙏

[@fate2022]

when you say find files in google downloads, do you mean my google drive, or my local computer downloads folder? Because I'm not seeing anything in my local download, or my google drive. A lot of info missing here, like how to download the files, not clear, what format should the files be? And then of course how to actually use the file to create an actual 3d engraving. Otherwise a great informative video, much appreciated.

[@mogergog]

Thank you for the video, do you know how to use this solution in Jupyter Notebook?

[@ghost00tj]

Awesome video. I pressed cancel on the refresh error and then it completed the file Thanks BILL SMITH edited from: I keep getting a error toward the end. It seems that it's almost done and it says need to run again.

[@denislavdochev3783]

Does it produce smooth enough images for Vectric Aspire?

[@tysonclarke012]

Reckon you could use this to create an stl for printing?

[@constantinosschinas4503]

I think stable diffusion also creates depthmaps, even from normal photographs or panoramas.

[@fate2022]

I started using this and worked great, but now I keep getting an error towards the very end saying my images are 4 channel and need to be 3 channel RGB, cleared cookies and cache, still the same, it's not working :(

[@chrisleech1565]

Really having trouble with the code finding pre-existing packages ie. numpy, triton,and torch. I am hard pressed to understand how. Beyond that, I did let it run the code in spite of a warning to restart the runtime to utilize the updated versions, but this proved futile. The depth map was generated from the JPEG however, but my software, Vectric V Carve Pro, didn't recognize the file as a 3D object.

[@awesomeisi92]

Any solution for a 3d ai mesh model to cover all sides of the depth map?

[@ShortBetter]

Awesome tutorial! Seems to be super easy process! I just followed the steps you gave, but the final result turn out to be not as yours. My image doesn't have much height of the details. it mostly looks very flat. How do I add "more 3d" effect to it? Thanks!

[@roofoofighter]

Run it again if you want more depth

[@ShortBetter]

@@roofoofighter do you mean running the final image again? Or just try one more time with the original image?

[@roofoofighter]

@@ShortBetter I mean leave the workpiece in place (don’t move it) and re-run the job again. Every time you run it the engraving will be deeper in the darkest areas of the image. Once you like the outcome you can stop.

[@Fevaboy2011]

Man great video, what would the settings be on laser burn for a tool d1 10w to get this effect

[@justinlaser]

Theres nothing stopping you from trying this with a 10w but the problem is they lack enough power to do the really deep levels of engraving. You can try running with really high power and doing several passes to see if it works. xTool Creative Space or Lightburn just use Grayscale mode for image processing.

[@TKs3DPrints]

will work fine on the d1 i use xtool machines and used this method for over a year now to carve my work.. though if you use the words wood relief stone or bas relief it will generate a 3d looking image that even as an engraving will look carved.. but depending on the wood you are trying to carve. there are limits..

[@Fevaboy2011]

@@TKs3DPrints what would be the best wood? And also a wood without any idk what you call it but the wood has lines in it after I engrave, I need a wood with no artifacts

[@TKs3DPrints]

@Fevaboy2011 yea finding good wood without growth rings is hard.. might be worth trying thick sheets of solid balsa but i am finding them hard to find.. we used to have a model aircraft shop that sold sheets but they closed down years ago.. might be worth looking into or trees that may be from warm climates as there winter growth rings wont be as dense.. mdf works but you cant go to deep as its compressed boards so the more to the middle of the board you go the more uncompressed it is.. if there are any skilled wood carvers out there. that could give an idea.

[@stephen5426]

@@Fevaboy2011 mdf

[@mariodebnarik5044]

Great but the details are not so high...how to improve it please

[@canalcna685]

This is a great tutorial, but I was trying to reproduce my own face to bass relief. Even importing a picture of my face on ai. How do you actually transform a picture of your face to bass relief?

[@metallicaandchimaira]

This is great but you cant do it with 4k or 8k res images. What I do is upscale the original picture 3 times but the final model in aspire isnt that great. I noticed the higher res of the photo, the more polygons it will have in the end model. I tried to use a 4k image to make the polycount at least 2mil high. However this program does not let me generate a depth map of that quality of image.

[@RAMAMOORTHIANNADURAI]

depth map vs height map vs normal map may in know what is the difference

[@kevinrich4637]

What type of file does it generate? SVG, DXF? I only have a DX1 10 watt but have a CNC. Can the file be in color? Sorry for so many questions but I want to delve into AI. Thank you for your time

[@justinlaser]

Most AI programs will output a jpg or png. The ZoeDepth program will only accept jpg/png for conversion. This is all OK because when you engrave grayscale images like this its a raster engraving process, not vector. Having color in the image shouldnt matter it will be discarded when processing.

[@kevinrich4637]

Thank you

[@ilmaru7680]

Is it possible to transform the depth map to 3d model?

[@BenoitBarbagli]

Hello, I am looking for a solution to generate deep maps for the "tiles". This method is challenging because the AI interprets the right and left, top and bottom differently.

[@ssssssss4053]

when you asked for viewers to click like the like buttons become highlighted for a brief moment.....how did you do that?

[@cancan-xo5up]

How you imported the photo. I have a photo of my cat

[@overpope3510]

You can do this or use basic photoshop skills. But skills are so 2020 right?

[@akademikolmayanperspektif6831]

my chrome not download aotomatcly. how can I do?

[@karenhadden4980]

Will these work for a diode laser and XCS as well?

[@justinlaser]

Yes but unless you have a 40w it might not get you the depth you want in wood. Usually done with higher power co2 lasers.

[@karenhadden4980]

@@justinlaser I have the 40w

[@TKs3DPrints]

been using this method for over a year with d1 pro 10w.. you just need to do multiple passes. may take longer but will work..

[@seryoger]

Can you give link from 2:47 ?

[@storytellerHD]

We keep trying but we're getting an error, regardless of the apparent size or image type. The error reads > AssertionError: x must have 3 channels, got 4. When we look at the explanation, the app is looking for 3 RGB chnnels and got 4 instead (we only have 3 though in the image attributes).

[@ryanansen]

I got this error too. I realized the image I was using was .PNG which has an alpha channel (the 4th channel). Be sure to use a .JPG and it'll work just fine!

[@jameswall1076]

Why can’t I get it to run? I’ve clicked all over the cell, hit ctrl+f9….nothing.

[@justinlaser]

Make sure you are connected and if Ctrl+F9 isnt working you can click the little play button next to that text.

[@konstantinoshatzimihail4199]

Hey guys i need some help. After uploading and running the programm a message about runtime restarting pops up. Now, either i hit cancel or restart, the result is the same... no depth maps fore me... :( What do i do wrong here?

[@stephen5426]

ignore error and do not click cancel or restart and at the bottom of screen you will see it "processing" it will then automatically download the finished image to your computer's download folder. it took about 13 minutes or so to finish after I saw the error message....

[@konstantinoshatzimihail4199]

@@stephen5426 Hey! I found it later by mistake, thank you for the response!

[@larkenj7193]

Anyone getting the "expected 3 channels not 4" you are using a PNG not a JPG. It works fine if using JPG

[@FusionMan-ev9yh]

Can I have a copy of that dragon image file please?

[@nate9639]

Not a single person has said this has worked for them.

[@LionTree]

ONE CLICK!??

[@DuyLaser]

PLEASE HELP STL FILE TO BMP FILE IS ABOUT 60 MB 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

[@andymeenanvideos]

Will this work for 3D printing insted of engraving?

[@TKs3DPrints]

it could be done but would take a lot of messing about to convert a depth map to a solid 3d model.. but depends on the slicer you are using.. also if you was able to you would not have much details in the model..

[@JoshuaBlackmon]

Theoretically, it should work to create a model of the same depth as if it were engraved. Engraving is removing negative space from a solid cylinder to produce the positive image. Additive manufacturing ignores the negative space and simply builds up the positive space only.

[@bridge1444]

"We don't like to anger our server Overlords". Ultimate slave quote.

[@aloreactusplayer1776]

love the video but this is how you get your acount hacked in 0.3 sec

[@d.i.d]

So make a new empty account for this job 😉

[@ArnaudMEURET]

Why?

[@kellyjean4981]

I appreciate your warning. Do you know of another option?

[@aloreactusplayer1776]

@@kellyjean4981 you can do this in fotoshop

[@user-bx9hy4ht7j]

keep getting the error "AssertionError: x must have 3 channels, got 4"

[@KenyonKores]

I keep getting an error saying “x must have 3 channels, got 4” Any ideas?

[@TomPearce]

RGB should only have 3 channels, but this image has 4. I had the same issue, I opened my image in photopea(or your editor of choice probably), made sure the mode was RGB and resaved it and then it worked.

[@KenyonKores]

@@TomPearce thanks, Man! I figured it out shortly after posting this but I appreciate you giving me a good answer. Looks like the transparency is the 4th layer, I had no idea but now I see the big difference in jpg vs png.

[@dreamineer21]

Keep getting an error : (

[@roofoofighter]

03:18 There’s something wrong with your engraving, there’s a vertical line on the right side of the dragon.

[@dansv9778]

x must have 3 channels, got 4 ??

[@legionjames1822]

anyone thinking 3d printing?

[@terryclair2914]

I won't use Google for anything, but thanks anyway!

[@barleyhopps]

World loves those Satanic images

[@bearsstuff]

It says Free and Easy, but looks like Midjourney costs $96/yr for their cheapest plan.

[@vincgordo5861]

"bas relief" is a french word for "low depth sculpture"... you should pronounce it in French.

[@joekazadi1252]

Most French thing I’ve ever read 😂🔥

[@vincgordo5861]

@@joekazadi1252 lol sur! but relief in english absolutely won't mean the same thing. so.. it's just a technical term.

[@jihadj.najmuddin9784]

Ai user.

[@jeanrenaudviers]

No Google, nor Chrome are needed. Liar.

[@user-ht3gr6lp7h]

error.. low_res_depth = dependencies['zoe'].infer_pil(img)

[@LeMortso]

Man, this is NOT easy. Is AI the ONLY method of generating image depth maps? Is there a manual (analog) method?