I have also thought about switching from grey or black to white on my single-color printer to make it look like the mountain tops have snow.
Prusa has instructions on how to make multi-colored prints. However, if you only want to use a few colors (like grey for mountains, green for grass, blue for water, white for snow caps.) You could buy a Prusa 3D printer with its multi-material upgrade. 3) I know next to nothing about full-color 3D printing. 2) Most definitely! You can select a large area, and cut it up into smaller sections that can then be printed on a small 3D printer. Be sure to check it out! (This link is also at the beginning of my instructions. And Shapespeare has already written an i'ble about how to use this tool. I guess makers get used to that pretty fast tho :)ġ) YES! The process is a bit different (I chose to talk about Terrain2STL bc its simpler). I hope this is helpful! I am sorry that your first attempt didn't work well. But if the selected area is greater than 1km^2.it'll charge you. It has contours ever 4 meters, which is pretty dog gone good. Let me know if the results are better! (if you try it) Using those tools is a very involved process though. The author of that i'ble says that some data sets even capture cars and trees!!! Be sure to give it a look. I gave a quick look at a few other tools (OpenTopo and USGS Data.helpful i'ble here: ) They may give better results. Worst case scenario, you end up with an awesome model of your county instead of just the town. I would not go smaller than 360, using the "Box Size" slider in Terrain2STL. I ended up with a low-poly topo map - not very exciting! However, I did select the area around my town (which is a very small town) and the topography showed up fine. OOOH! Interesting problem! I replicated your issue by selecting the smallest possible area I could in Terrrain2STL.got your same problem. This ensures that the base does not warp (when printed horizontally) or fall of the build plate (when printed vertically). I printed my map at 30mm/sec.īuild Plate Adhesion: Select brim regardless of the orientation of your map (20 lines is best). Fast printing speeds will cause ringing, vibration, or even the eventual failure of the print. Speed: If you are printing your topo map vertically, speed is a very important setting. If you would rather shoot for a matte finish, try decreasing the print temperature. Temperature: Setting the nozzle temperature 5 degrees hotter than normal will make the print shinier. However, if protruding features (in this case mountains) are steeper than 45-degrees, in relation to the base of the model, it is the only possible way to print without supports, which would make an unpainted topo map look horrific. Printing the map horizontally will result in less detailed contours. Also, ridges and curves are much more accurately represented. Printing the map vertically may seem like a strange idea, but it allows you to achieve features equal in width to your finest resolution. Orientation: Now that the file is imported into your slicer, you need to decide whether to print the map vertically or horizontally. The model may be way too big to print on your machine, so just scale down each axis uniformly so it fits on the build platform and retains the correct scale. Scaling: Open your slicer of choice, (I use Cura), and upload the. Here are the settings you need to tweak to print a beautiful topo map. Well, hold on.we have one more very important step.īefore printing, we must convert the. OK.so far, you have picked a location to print, generated a model of that location, and are now dying to get the final product into your hands to show everyone.
It should show up in your downloads folder as a zip folder that contains your.
That's it! Now, just generate the model and download it. (Pro Tip: Just make sure that the 'Base Height' is greater than the 'Water Drop' input.) A 5mm base with a 2mm drop looks very nice. If your map has a body of water in it, try increasing the 'Water Drop' value under the 'Water and Base Settings.' This will create a negative vertical offset that highlights the presence of water. If the area you selected is relatively flat, consider bumping up the 'Vertical Scaling' factor.ħ. Once you have the perfect area selected, you can also scale and rotate it.Ħ. Here you can adjust the size of the area you want to print and move the red box to that area on the terrain map.ĥ. Unless you know the coordinates of the area you want to 3D print, I suggest moving from the 'Location' tab to the 'Model Details' tab.Ĥ. You will be met with several tool options: 'Location', 'Model Details', 'Water and Base Settings', and 'Instructions.'ģ. Terrain2STL is a wonderful tool to help you get a 3D model of the map you want to print.Ģ.