Just curious if someone could point me in the right direction for creating these STL files. I don’t mind learning but I appear to be having difficulty figuring out the proper terms to be searching for, to find tutorials.
Most things i’m coming across are for full 3d models. I’m “simply” (maybe not so simple?) looking to create these types of files from images I already have.
I’m also trying to do this and all I’ve found is to use fusion 360, blender, inscape or Aspire. I’d like to see other responses too 
Have you managed to find any tutorials on how to use those programs to make them?
I recall seeing an old (likely outdated, it was 10+ years ago made and didnt mention CNC) of them doing a “bas relief” where they could trace out a character/object from an image in GIMP or Photoshop, then use greys to make a “height map” then some how convert that into an STL file. Seemed like it was on the right track for what I wanted, but was missing a lot of information.
Following to see what different ways people do it.
Coming from knowing nothing about 3D/Bas-Relief, I’ve found the Vectric YouTube tutorials on 3D modeling to be quite helpful. Until going through all of these I really did not understand how much Aspire can do.
There are also a couple of good 3D tutorials by Beki at Vectric from last years Vectric Worldwide:
Specifically, the Trout video goes through creating a 3D from a 2D image.
I tried the Bas-Relief feature in ZBrush when it came out last year. I didn’t have any luck with it, especially the kind of quality of STL’s you have above. Also, with the feature being new there were very few tutorials. Along with the fact that since then ZBrush has been acquired and is becoming a subscription.
There are tools in Blender also, height maps, etc., but that’s another learning curve for me. Not sure I need all that?
I’ve spent a lot of time looking for ways to do this also. So far, Aspire is the only tool which I’ve used to create some of my own 3D results with.
Made this one recently - still have some learning to get to your examples above:
I’ve been trying to do the same and found this video helpful. He uses Blender which is free. While Blender is difficult to learn, you only need a few basic steps in there.
If you have access to Z-Brush, this video shows how to get from fusion 360 to z-brush to a model.
Getting a bit closer I think, came across this
https://triaxes.com/articles/manual-depth-map-creation/
It’s a tutorial on how to manually create depth maps of 2d images. Ignore the last bit about the animation part. It appears this is one way of creating the greyscale bitmap images. I believe there is a variety of software out there in which you can then import these greyscale bitmaps, to make into an STL file. I’ll have to test it out - but it should give a result similar to the samples I posted in the original post. Might be a bit tedious to make, but it appears thats one way to make them.
Edit: Heres a more updated version of essentially the same thing, in video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ0RuWf-J1k
