I`m new at this universe of 3D modeling, and i've had some troubles... some really newbie troubles... like: I have done an image vector on the Illustrator but i dont know how to turn it into a 3D file acccepted on the Shapeway, i know that there are a few programs that may do the job, but my question is: what is the file format (Ai, PSD, Jpeg, PNG, PDF) tha will open with... I dont know... Sculptris, maybe. You know what i mean? Like, when i open the Sculptris I cant import any of these files to try to make the conversion, it says files not suported... Sorrry for my bad english, im from Brazil =) Thanks for the help.
If you have an .svg file you can import that into Blender. It will give you a model in the form of Bezier curves which you can convert to a mesh and then extrude... Not sooo simple but possible. Blender is free, by the way. Good luck!
What exactly do you want to do with the 2d image? Is it in black/white and you simply want to extrude it? Then convert the svg to a jpg and use the "2D to 3D" tool from shapeways to turn it into an extruded object. Maybe firefox or internet explorer are able to convert the svg to bmp. Otherwise use inkscape or gimp. If you want to design a complex object, you really need an advanced software like blender. If you just need a little bit more than the "2D to 3D" tool but not the full blown blender package, you might also take a look at my own application extrudy (www.extrudy.net or https://www.facebook.com/eXtrudy)