Soap Dish Generator: Turn Any Photo into a Custom Drainage Pattern

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What this makes

A two-part soap dish built around any picture you upload: a solid tray (the basin that catches water) and a thin insert plate that drops into the tray's rim with your picture cut clean through it as drainage slots. Soap sits on the insert; water runs through the cut pattern into the basin below instead of pooling and dissolving the bar.

The tray comes in a rounded rectangle, an oval, or Fits your image, which shapes the tray to follow your own picture's outline instead of a fixed footprint, sized to whatever bar of soap you actually own. The pattern is whatever you upload: a logo, initials, a leaf, a wave, a photo of your dog. Anything the cut would otherwise isolate, like the counter of a letter or a ring in a logo, is tied back on automatically so nothing falls out mid-print.

How to make one

  1. Upload a bold, high-contrast image: a logo, a line drawing, or a photo with a clear subject.
  2. Pick rounded rectangle, oval, or Fits your image, and set the tray's width, length and height.
  3. Check the preview: the cream insert should show your picture as open slots, seated inside the terracotta tray.
  4. If a piece of the pattern is too faint or too small to trace cleanly, nudge the cutoff slider or invert it.
  5. Download the STL (two files, zipped) or the 3MF (both parts in one file, already coloured), then print the tray and the insert separately.

Sizing that actually drains

SettingUseWhy
Tray height18 to 24 mmLeaves a real water reservoir under the insert, not a shallow puddle
Wall thickness2.5 to 3.5 mmEnough to hold its shape wet, without eating into the drainage well
Insert thickness2.5 to 3.5 mmThin enough to cut a crisp pattern, thick enough to hold the bar's weight
Border around the pattern6 to 10 mmKeeps the cut away from the insert's own edge, where it would weaken the rim it rests on
Footprint~20 mm bigger than the barRoom for the soap to sit without hanging off the edge

Printing two parts, two colours

The tray and the insert are separate files by design: they print flat on their own, and they need to come apart when a bar of soap wears down and the insert needs a wash. Download the 3MF if you want the two parts already coloured for a multi-material printer. Download the STL (delivered as a zip of two files) for a single-nozzle printer, and just do two prints in whatever colours you like.

Print both parts flat on the bed, no supports needed for either one. The insert is the part worth a slower, finer layer height, since that is where the pattern actually shows.

Common problems

My picture traced into a mess of tiny disconnected shapes

Almost always a low-contrast photo or very fine linework. Use a bolder image, raise the contrast before uploading, or nudge the cutoff slider until the preview shows one clean pattern instead of scattered specks.

The insert doesn't sit flush in the tray

It is meant to sit slightly recessed below the rim with a small reveal, resting on an internal shoulder, not flush with the top edge. If it feels tight once printed, raise the Fit slider under Advanced settings by 0.2 mm; printed parts usually come out a hair oversize.

A part of my pattern is missing from the preview

A very small or very thin piece may have been isolated by the cut with nothing solid nearby to bridge it to, so it was dropped rather than shipped as a loose chip that would fall off mid-print. The sidebar tells you when this happens. A bolder image, or a wider Bridges setting, usually keeps it.

Can I skip the insert and just print the tray?

Download waits for an image, since the whole point of this tool is the pattern. If you just want a plain dish with no drainage cut, any of Meshcast's other tools that print a simple tray shape will do that with less setup.

What does Fits your image do?

It shapes the tray to follow your own picture's outline instead of a fixed rounded rectangle or oval, smoothed so it always prints cleanly: any jagged edge from the trace is rounded off, and any part too thin to hold a proper wall is filled in automatically. Works best with one bold, simple subject; a picture with several pieces scattered far apart will keep only the largest and tell you if something was left out.

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