You can go from a single photo to a physical print without knowing 3D modelling. I have done it twice: once to copy a lamp I saw on Vinted instead of buying it, and once to replace the missing head of a vintage chess piece. Here is the workflow that worked both times.
1. Start with a clean photo
The AI model generator will try to model everything in the picture. For the lamp, I first asked ChatGPT to remove the light bulb from the photo, because a bulb is much harder to cut out of a finished 3D model than out of an image. For the chess piece, I photographed an intact piece on its own.
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2. Generate the model from the photo
I used Hyper3D (hyper3d.ai) both times: upload the image, pick the high-quality setting, generate, download.
3. Fix the size
The model comes out at an arbitrary scale. I opened it in Blender, switched the units to metric millimetres and scaled it to real dimensions. For the chess head, the only thing that mattered was matching the height of the original pieces.
4. Add the functional parts
A decorative print is done at step 3. The lamp needed two holes: one sized for the bulb socket (I measured mine at 28 mm across) and one for the power cable, both cut in Blender with a cylinder and a boolean modifier. Measure your real hardware before you cut.
5. Slice and print
I sliced it in Bambu Studio and printed the lamp on a Bambu Lab A1, with supports.
6. Finish it
For the lamp: remove the supports, push the cable through, connect the socket, screw in the bulb. For the chess piece: cut the broken neck clean, glue the printed head on, and paint it to match the resin.
Did it work?
The lamp works, and the printed chess head came out close enough that you cannot spot the repaired piece in the photos.
Update: copying a whole chess piece from one photo
I later tested the same workflow with Hyper3D Rodin on two more chess pieces. One started as an image I generated in ChatGPT (a Chinese-style king, and the first attempt did not even look like a king). The other was a single phone photo of a real chess piece I own, taken with the zoom lens. Generating the model costs no credits, so you can check it first; downloading it costs half a credit. I used medium quality, matched the height of the original in the slicer and dropped the model down a little because the base was not level. Both printed on my Bambu Lab A1 mini, and the copy from the photo came out very close to the original piece.
What I would tell anyone trying it
Clean the photo before you generate anything, expect to fix the scale by hand, and measure every real part (socket, cable, the piece you are matching) before you print.
The full builds are written up here: I Saw a Lamp on Vinted and Printed It Instead and A €20 Second-Hand Chess Set, One Broken Piece, and a 3D Printer.
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