I had seen this done in the past and wanted to give it a try myself. This is essentially a 2D printed image that is manipulated in such a way that when viewed an a specific angle, it looks “3D”, or simply like actual object.
I started with a picture I took of a large gear I have sitting on my desk (it’s an actual transmission gear from an Indycar).
Utilizing the help from this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc22qegpumk) and the Photoshop template file it also provides, I came up with this manipulated image:
The final effect looks like this:
The actual printed and cutout image:
A quick video of the effect: