Where Mesh Studio sits in the pipeline
Mesh Studio is the front half of LaserTools' crystal-engraving pipeline. You feed it a photograph and it generates a 3D file. Crystal Studio then places that file inside a virtual crystal blank and exports a point cloud your subsurface laser engraver can run. The whole chain is purpose-built for one outcome, a 3D image suspended inside a clear glass crystal, so Mesh Studio's settings and outputs are tuned for that destination rather than for surface engraving on wood or acrylic.
One thing to know up front: Mesh Studio does not burn anything itself. It produces the geometry, and Crystal Studio handles the placement, density, and export for subsurface laser engraving (SSLE). If you are heading anywhere other than Crystal Studio, this is the wrong tool.
The three generation modes
Mesh Studio offers three modes, and each is a real production output. Pick the one that suits the result you want inside the crystal.
| Mode | What it produces | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 2D | Drops the image straight into the crystal as a flat plane with no depth information. Right for logos, text, labels, and anything you want to read flat and undistorted in the glass. | Free |
| 2.5D | A depth-relief mesh from a single photo: depth on the face, flat behind. The workhorse for portraits and one-sided subjects. | 50 credits |
| 3D — 3Dimensional v1.1 (textured) | Takes a single photo and reconstructs a full 3D mesh, so the crystal engraving reads correctly from every angle as you rotate it. In Beta, and at its best on simple shapes. | 100 credits |
| 3D — 3Dimensional v2 | The newer full-3D model, also full-colour textured and also in Beta. Worth trying when v1.1 does not hold your subject together. | 100 credits |
Generating a mesh
Open Mesh Studio and submit a photo, either by dropping it on the upload zone or sending one across from Photo Studio's export bar. PNG, JPG, and WebP all work. Pick the mode you want, click Generate, and wait a couple of minutes. When it is done, the mesh appears in the preview, ready to import into Crystal Studio with one click. The companion guide on photo to crystal engraving picks up from there.
Practical advice
Use real photographs as your source. AI-generated images can disrupt the depth model and produce muddy or distorted results. The model reads the natural lighting, shadow, and texture cues that come out of a real camera, and synthetic images do not carry the same signals.
If you pick 3D, plan for two things a relief never asks of you. First, engraved glass has no occlusion: the far side of the object stays visible through the near side, so a head engraved in 3D shows the back of the skull faintly behind the face. Simple, open shapes carry this well; anything crowded with internal detail turns muddy. It also makes the texture’s tones matter more than usual, since a bright front only separates from a darker back — you set that balance with the 3D color control in Crystal Studio.
Second, a 3D mesh is sampled across its entire surface rather than just the face, so it carries far more points than a 2.5D relief of the same subject and takes correspondingly longer to engrave. Check the point count before committing to a long run, and if the machine time matters more than the all-round effect, 2.5D is often the better trade.