Depth maps for CNC relief carving

How it works

Photograph in, height map out

Load an image into Embossing Studio, or click Edit in Photo Studio first to clean it up and send it across. Pick emBOSS v1.0 and generate: it reads the single photograph and estimates how far each point sits from the camera, then writes that out as a grayscale height map where brighter means higher. You then get a live 3D preview you can orbit. Toggle between Photo, your image draped over the relief, and Depth, the raw map, and use Reset camera when you lose your bearings. Crop to a Rectangle or Circle to throw away edges that are only adding noise, and pull Depth Scale up or down until the relief reads the way you want in the preview rather than the way it looks as a flat image. Export an 8-bit PNG with transparency and load that into your CNC or laser software.

Turning a height map into a real cut

The PNG is relative, not dimensional. Brightness is height as a proportion, and your CNC software decides what the full range means in millimetres, so the same file can be a 2 mm relief in maple or a shallow variable-depth laser pass on anodised aluminium. That is where most of the work goes. Wood grain will fight fine detail on a shallow relief, so either go deeper or simplify the source image. A ball-nose finishing pass with a tight stepover is what makes a photo-derived relief look carved rather than terraced; a flat end mill will stair-step gradients no matter how good the map is. Cut a test tile before the real blank. A relief that reads perfectly on screen at full depth often needs the depth halved once you see it in oak, and that is cheaper to learn on an offcut.

When a photo is the wrong source

emBOSS v1.0 estimates depth from one image, which means it is guessing about everything the camera could not see. Areas hidden behind the subject, the inside of a mug handle, anything strongly backlit: those come out as plausible shapes rather than measured ones. Photographs with a busy background, low contrast or heavy gloss give the weakest results. A clear single subject against a clean background is worth more than any slider afterwards, which is why cleaning the image up in Photo Studio first is usually time well spent. Some jobs should not start from a photograph at all. Lettering, logos and geometric ornament carve better as extruded vector art in your CNC package, where the edges are exact and the depth is a number you chose. And Embossing Studio is still early access, so results vary while it is being improved.

Frequently asked questions

What file does Embossing Studio actually export?

An 8-bit PNG with transparency: a grayscale height map where brightness stands for height, which is the standard input for relief carving and variable-depth laser work. It drops straight into height-map-aware CNC and laser software. The transparency marks the area outside your crop, so the machine is not asked to carve a background you removed.

Does the map contain real depths in millimetres?

No, and that is normal for height maps. The PNG stores relative height only; the physical depth comes from the range you set in your CNC or laser software. Depth Scale in Embossing Studio changes how pronounced the relief is within that range, meaning how far the shapes stand apart from each other, not how deep the finished cut will be.

Will it work on any photograph?

It works best on a clear single subject with a clean background and even lighting. Busy backgrounds, low contrast, strong backlighting and glossy surfaces all confuse depth estimation, and the relief comes out soft or wrong. Clean the image up in Photo Studio first, with background removal and levels, before generating. Embossing Studio is early access, so expect to re-run some images.