Taking Rupert from 2D to 3D – An Example of Using AI to Convert a Cartoon Into a 3D Printed Part

But how do we get a 2D cartoon to be a 3D model that can be easily and economically printed in volume?

Well, the answer was AI and some handy software. In this article, we will walk you through the whole process, not just because it’s cool but also because you may want to do it someday yourself.

Starting with a 2D Cartoon

This whole thing started as an attention-grabbing graphic to encourage people to sign up for our open house. Not having that level of artistic skill, we went to Adobe Firefly and used AI to generate some images.

You can see below that it started off pretty rough but ended up with some eye grabing images.

You have probably seen the vintage-ish postcard we picked, with some text and logos added in Adobe Photoshop:

The final prompt was:

a robot wearing lederhosen standing the arizona desert holding a blank long pennant flag. Make it look like a poster from the late 1800’s . add a small robot dog holding a sign in its mouth saying, “And Manufacturing Pavilion” Don’t add any titles except for the sign. don’t include paper folds. make sure all graphics fit within the image boundaries.

We used the Google Imagen 4 model. We have found that different models work better for different applications. This was the best for our goal of a vintage poster.

Modifying the 2D Dog

Turns out people were more interested in the dog than the robot. We made some other versions also using Adobe Firefly with the GPT image model:

That particular AI image model is great at taking an existing image and modifying it. It recognized it as a dog and it was easy to make it sit or stand and change the camera angles.

Going from 2D to 3D – Convert the Cartoon into a Solid

When the 3D Printing team suggested we make a 3D Model, I jumped right into my favorite CAD program and used the above images as a guide to create a 3D model from scratch.

I think he came out pretty good, but he really doesn’t look like the cartoon. And this took me about two hours to get right.

So the team decided not to be old-fashioned like me and kept going with the AI tools. The first thing they did was isolate the original image. They also used ChatGPT. The key to getting things started was the prompt.

Although very cool and energetic, this position would be hard to print because it would need a lot of support material.

The next step was to they then asked the tool to have him sit down:

But it still looks like a drawing. The tool that converts 2D images into 3D images needs something that looks like a picture of a 3D CAD model. So they asked it to convert Rupert into a “flat maquette style.” A maquette is a coarse sculpture.

Now we are getting close, but it needs to look less like a puppet and more like a 3D Model, so we asked it to convert the flat version to 3D with a flat texture.:

Armed with that 2D image, we went over to a tool powered by Tripo to convert the shaded image into a 3D meshed model. With a few tweaks, we got pretty close to what we wanted, a 3D model of Rupert sitting there ready to be printed.

Modify the 3D Solid

Although this looks great on the computer, there are a few features that make him look a bit clunky or that will be hard to 3D print. So we popped that 3D model over to an iPad app called Nomadsculpt. It works with mesh models like a sculpting tool. In the hands of the right user, you can really clean up and improve a model. Fortunately, PADT’s Andrew Smith is one of those users. After some artistic modifications, we got our final solid with no sharp edges and thicknesses where needed:

Print a Pack of Ruperts

The 3D printing services team added an oval base and filled in the mouth to avoid support structure that needed to be removed. Once everyone was happy, they sent it to our Stratasys Origin One additive manufacturing system. The packing (pun intended) software made it easy to arrange a whole bunch of Ruperts into one build.

The next step is to hit print. Here is what they look like after the build. The Stratasys Origin 2 is a Programmable PhotoPolymerization (P3) form of Vat Photopolymerization (VPP), which uses a projector that points to a clear plate on the bottom of the vat. The result is that all of those Ruperts get built upside down, and they look like bats.

And Now Rupert is Part of the PADT Family

The best way to meet Rupert and see the outcome of his journey from 2D to 3D is to come to Nerdtoberfest on October 21st in Tempe. Visit the Nerdtoberfest site here to learn more.

We use additive manufacturing every day at PADT, but on industrial parts that are the intellectual property of our customers, so we can’t share them here on our blog. The same goes for how we apply AI to our work. So we thought that Rupert would be an excellent way to document how we use these tools.

This technology is rapidly changing. The ability to go from 2D to 3D was hit or miss a year ago. Now it gets you very close. This was for a cartoon robot dog, but there are many practical engineering applications for this technology. Good examples would be reverse engineering components you only have a picture of, or creating visual mockups from sketches.

If you found this useful, please consider PADT for your 3D printing, simulation, and design needs. We are here to help. Reach out, and let’s have a conversation. You will be surprised by the number of ways we can help make your innovation work.