Two words, one sculpture
- Type two words with the same number of letters.
- Check the shadows — amber from the front, blue from the side.
- Download and print it standing on its base.
A shadow sculpture is an object that casts two different shadows — one word when lit from the front, another when lit from the side. This free tool builds one in your browser: type two words of the same length (two names, "LOVE" and "HOME", a date and an initial) or add two silhouettes, check the shadows in the preview, and download an STL to print.
New — 6 November 2026: first version. Written by Ned Walsch, who also makes the lithophane studio and the STL splitter.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Orientation | Standing on its base, as exported | The letters are vertical extrusions; the base is the flat face. |
| Supports | Tree supports, build plate only | Pairs like T/L leave overhangs at the top. |
| Layer height | 0.16–0.2 mm | The shadow does not need fine layers; the edges do not change. |
| Walls / infill | 3 walls, 15 % infill | Thin letter strokes are mostly walls anyway. |
| Filament | Matte PLA, any opaque colour | Translucent filament lets light through and blurs the shadow. |
A shadow is as sharp as the light is small and far. A bare LED, a phone torch or a mini spotlight 1–2 m away gives crisp letters; a ceiling lamp or a window gives none. Line the light up with the front face (or the side face) — a few degrees off and the letters start to merge — and put the sculpture close to the wall: the further the wall, the bigger and softer the shadow.
Each letter block is the intersection of two extrusions: letter A extruded front to back and letter B extruded side to side. What is left casts letter A's silhouette when lit from the front and letter B's when lit from the side. Blocks for each pair of letters stand in a diagonal row on a base, so the front shadow reads one word and the side shadow the other.
Yes — letter 1 of the first word is paired with letter 1 of the second, and so on. Pad a shorter name with a symbol (! ? & #) or choose a matching nickname. Up to 12 letters.
Some letter pairs leave a piece that does not reach the base (the inside of an O over a letter with a gap, for example). The tool finds every such piece and, with "pin floating pieces" on, adds a 1.6 mm post under its lowest point; the post shows only as a hairline in the shadow. The result card says how many pieces were pinned.
Usually yes, for the overhangs where one letter is wider at the top than the other (T, Y, 7). Print it standing on its base with tree supports from the build plate only, 0.16–0.2 mm layers. Matte PLA looks best; the colour does not change the shadow.
One small light straight in front of it casts the front word on the wall behind; a second light from the right side casts the side word. The smaller and the farther the light, the sharper the shadow — a phone torch at 1–2 m works, a pair of mini LED spotlights is better.
Yes. Switch to Pictures and add a front silhouette and a side silhouette (dark shapes on a light background work best; tick "light is the shape" for the opposite). An optional third picture is used as the view from above. Each is cleaned up so nothing is thinner than 0.8 mm.