Mars Rover Lithophane Lamp

Greetings, Earthlings!

Hello from Mars with this Mars Rover Selfie Lithophane Lamp featuring a selfie taken by NASA’s Curiosity Rover. Please read through the details below to learn more about the data behind the model, print requirements, and acknowledgements.

Description

This unique lithophane lamp is inspired by the Minimalist City Map Lithophane Lamps, with a Martian twist! Featuring a stunning Curiosity rover selfie, the lamp brings a piece of space exploration into your home, school, or office.

• Source Image: The featured image is PIA22486, a mosaic of individual images taken by the MAHLI camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover. This remarkable selfie was acquired on mission sol 2082 (June 15, 2018), during a Martian dust storm at Gale Crater. The rover was positioned at the "Duluth" drill site, just north of Vera Rubin Ridge.
• Seam Details: The selfie is not a 360-degree panorama. To cover the gap, the rear seam showcases the iconic tread pattern of the rover’s wheels, adding an authentic touch to the design. The tread even shows (albeit with limited fidelity) the Morse code “JPL” pattern imprinted on the wheels that represent the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where the rover was built and the mission is still managed.
• Top of the Lamp: The lid highlights a topographic map of Mars, created using MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) data from the Mars Global Surveyor mission. The central meridian of the stereographic projection is 93 degrees, and the latitude of origin is at the equator. If you are looking for Olympus Mons or Valles Marineris, they are on the other side of the planet from Gale Crater, the rover's exploration site.

Illuminate your space with this one-of-a-kind design, combining the wonders of Mars with intricate lithophane artistry. Whether you're a space enthusiast, a 3D printing hobbyist, or simply appreciate unique designs, this lamp is a perfect fit!

Requirements

The lamp consists of three parts: the base, the shade, and the lid. The lamp shade is 174mm tall and 105 mm in diameter. On my MKS4, this took 167g of PLA and took about 17 hours to print with a 0.10mm layer height and a 0.4mm nozzle.

The featured topo map lid is 8 mm tall (an added 3mm to the lamp once assembled) with the same 105mm diameter. The lid requires about 25g of filament and takes about 2.5 hours to print.

No bases are included in the make. Instead, check out the bases available with @FritzPeppone’s awesome Minimalist City Map Lithophane Lamps. Here you also will find a matching lid that is plain if you’d rather go that way.

In the images, I am using the medium base (01_map_lamp_base_001_medium.stl) that fits an LED Lamp Kit 001 equivalent light source.

Print Settings

Despite the complicated look of the final product, you shouldn’t need to change many options when slicing.

• Print in PLA or PLA+
• Recommended layer height: 0.10mm gives better fidelity for the topo lid and makes the rear tread patterns pop.
• Pay attention to the seam location. When imported into your slicer, the lamp shade should be properly oriented such that setting the seam position to rear will put the seam in the right place, that is on the left edge of the tread pattern bar to avoid a seam in the middle of the pattern. Likewise, setting the seam position to rear for the topo lid will align with the lamp shade seam when assembled. 
• Use the Arachne Perimeter Generator if available. I have not tried with Classic Perimeter Generator.
• Recommended infill: set to 100% infill for the topo lid to avoid artifacts. The infill doesn’t matter so much for the lamp shade. If you print the lamp shade with a wall count of 4 or higher, infill shouldn’t be used at all.
• A brim is not required. Use Inner Brim if you find one is needed.
• Supports are not needed.

Before printing:

• Check your seam position to ensure it is at the rear. Even though the models should be properly oriented, you have to manually set the seam position to rear.
• Clean your print surface before printing the topo lid. The portion of the topo lid that prints first will be the top of the assembled lamp.

Slicing might take a few minutes, and printing times are not trivial (about 18 hours on my MK4S). 

Filament

Just as most of us don’t want to read instructions, most of us don’t want to test our filaments and print settings. If you want to jump in a fire off a 15+ hour print job straight away, great! On the other hand, you might want to printing @FritzPeppone's Calibration Panel with your filament of choice. I had success with Jessie Premium PLA White, but then I also am using a multi-temperature, dimmable light source that can adapt the light to my mood. Check the temperature printing specs for your filament and match them in your slicer if a matching preset isn’t available.

Lamp Bases and Lids

Your lamp isn’t complete without a base and a lid! The rover selfie topo lid is a remix of the solid lid at the excellent Minimalist City Map Lithophane Lamps. Bases and a solid (blank) lid from this site are included below for completeness. Check out this site if you have questions about setting up the light.

Assembly

After printing a base, lamp shade, and lid, check the threads for stringing and carefully clean them if present. Insert your light source into the base and then gently screw together the three printed parts. Don’t overtighten the parts!

Technical information on the source data

The Curiosity rover selfie mosaic is in the public domain and can be found at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22486. It is a composite of ~84 individual images taken by the MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) instrument located on the rover’s arm. I converted the source image to grayscale but did not apply a contrast stretch, the color stretch in the original being rather good. Original image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

The topo lid was created from MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) data from the Mars Global Surveyor mission. The central meridian of the stereographic projection is 93 degrees, and the latitude of origin is at the equator. The limitations of lithophane really shows here, as we are representing 1 km of elevation in each layer of filament. (That is, about 29 km of difference between the minimum and maximum surface elevations spread over 30 layers of filament when printed at 0.10mm layer height). Source data doi:10.17189/1519460 reprojected by the MOLA Team (https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/search/map/mars_mgs_mola_dem_463m).

The rover track at the back of the lamp shade is the tread pattern you see from one rotation of Curiosity’s wheel. The spacing and width of the tread pattern is to scale. I used a figure showing part of the pattern from some mission document in the public domain that I’ve since forgotten.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to these resources that made the Mars rover selfie lithophane lamp possible:

• @FritzPeppone for his fantastic Minimalist City Map Lithophane Lamps and incredible Minimalist City Map Lithophane Lamps - Tutorial on creating lithophane lamp shades from images.
• The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover MAHLI and Mars Global Surveyor MOLA instrument teams and parent science teams for their dedication to expanding our knowledge of the red planet. 
• Lithophane Maker for their lithophane creation tool

 Changelog

• 2025-04-09: initial upload
• 2025-04-12: added bases and solid lid

Important Note: This model is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license, which permits non-commercial use and requires proper attribution. However, I kindly request that this model not be reposted to other websites without prior permission. Thank you for respecting the intent behind this creation.