3D Printed World Map (with elevation)

Filemon · 2015-05-15T08:15:26.000Z

Awesome community!

I need your help. I’ve been playing with an idea for a while and this weekend I want to get it started

The goal is to 3D print a World Map, about 2m wide. The idea is to have actual elevation represented and print it like a puzzle, with each piece being a country / state. It will take me about 250 printed pieces I expect which on average should fit my printers.

My question:

Does anybody know, can help me, with translating a world map into different .stl files per country/state, with the actual elevations represented in the files? Has this already been done before maybe?

I’ve seen similar concepts like this one: World Map by toddsplod67 - Thingiverse, but I’m aiming to have this per country and on a larger scale.

Help is much appreciated.

Cheers!

Filemon

aeroaks · 2015-05-15T10:06:37.000Z

Hi,

I would be interested in helping you out. Looks like a great idea.

meatcurry · 2015-05-15T10:52:31.000Z

You can use this to generate STL files from Googlemaps Terrain2STL

Let me know if you need help printing

Arnoldas · 2015-05-15T13:47:28.000Z

This is a nice tool! I actually wanted to print my own country like that, however this tool doesn’t really allow to generate it as bis as a country (even a really small one). You can do cities for sure tho!

Filemon · 2015-05-15T15:18:12.000Z

Thanks, any idea for the first step? Creating the files?

Pot8oSH3D · 2015-05-15T17:33:01.000Z

Ermahgerd!! Threrder prernerd glerb?! Ertsertnerng!! Gerferert, Flermern!!

3Dscaleworks · 2015-05-15T18:03:19.000Z

For the Netherlands this would be tricky , since most of u live below NAP!

3DPrintedArt · 2015-05-15T19:01:18.000Z

This instructable might help: http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printing-Models-of-Landscapes-Topology-Mountain/

Check it out!

Arnoldas · 2015-05-15T19:06:11.000Z

Nice one!

Cinter · 2015-05-15T19:38:42.000Z

@meatcurry this is awesome, I’m guessing they are using the Google Elevation API. I guess my question is, do you know how to convert data from an API into a .stl? Apologies if this is a stupid question but I’ve done a lot of googling and this could provide cool data sources for physical IOT products, something that 3D printing offers perfect capability for!

Jeremycon · 2015-05-17T14:01:44.000Z

Hi I’ve used http://jthatch.com/terrain2stl/ as well, and got some great results see

thingiverse.com

Leros Greek Island by Jeremycon

This is Leros,a Greek island north of Rhodes, downloaded from 'terrain2stl' printed on Up Plus2 then painted in acrylics.

the only problem with this program is the size of the area you can convert, otherwise it’s great

Filemon · 2015-05-17T16:49:51.000Z

Thanks!

Filemon · 2015-05-17T16:51:07.000Z

Nice! Thanks

3DPrintedArt · 2015-05-17T20:11:01.000Z

No problem!