How to Make 3D Printed Topographic Map/terrain Models!

Making your own 3D printed topographic maps is easy with Equator Studios!

Want to learn how to make your own 3D printed gifts? Follow this tutorial to learn how!

Open the online Equator Studios platform

Click here to open the Equator Studios platform online.

Equator is mapping and design software with thousands of built-in data (like high-resolution elevation data). Equator Studios is used by civil engineers, architects, and designers around the world to find, build, and share topographic maps and designs instantly.

Use the “Search” menu to find the location you want to print, or the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out.

For this tutorial, we picked Little River New Zealand because the topography looks amazing and there is high-resolution elevation data in that area. We were excited to create physical terrain maps for this area.

In the Data menu, click ‘Global Lidar Availability’.

Click ‘+ New Site’ in the bottom left and find a colored polygon (these shapes show high-resolution coverage areas). If your site is not covered by a colored polygon, you can choose to work with low-res topography or pick a different location.

Equator includes high-resolution elevation data from LiDAR (accurate to a few centimeters) in parts of Canada, the US, and New Zealand. If you are working in other areas, you can still generate 3D print-ready terrain, but it is created from low-resolution elevation data (accurate to roughly 30 m).

Zoom in and out until you are happy with the site boundary and then click “ADD A NEW SITE HERE.” This boundary will be used to crop the 3D topography.

Note: Some of our UI has been updated. Click here to view an updated video guide on how to extract data from Equator.

When you generate 3D printable files using Equator, we convert data from a LiDAR point cloud into a 3D mesh that can be modified for printing. When you select your site, it lets Equator know what boundaries it should crop your file to.

Click on a shaded polygon and click “VIEW NOW” to preview the LiDAR point cloud. To turn off the preview, visit the “Layer” menu and use the eye icon.

When you click “View Now,” the source LiDAR data points are turned on. This is the detailed lidar scan that we build our topographic maps from!

In the Data menu on the left, scroll down until you see “Printable Mesh (STL).” Click the green “+” button next to Printable Mesh (STL).

Enter a scale factor of 0.1-2. Start with 1.0. You may need to experiment with different values here if your export has too tall of a base. Click “Generate” when you’re ready.

In this step, our goal is to only ensure that that the base of the model is the right thickness. In step 9, we discuss exaggerating the vertical scale of the terrain.

Import this STL file into your 3D printers slicing software, in this example we’re using Chitubox and printing with a Creality LD-002R

Rotate and scale the print to fit your 3d printers print bed. You may need to adjust the Z scale of your print separately, we are still fine-tuning our exporter and some areas require tweaking.

When creating raised relief maps, it is common practice to modify the vertical (z) scale to customize the look of the map. In areas where the terrain is fairly flat, it is common to exaggerate the vertical scale to better illustrate what the ground looks like. Inversely, when creating beautiful maps of 3D mountains, you may want to reduce the vertical scale.

Click slice to process the STL file into a 3D printable format (gcode, ctb, etc)

Once the slicing has finished, click “Save” and save the file to a USB drive

Place the USB drive into your 3d printer and start the print

Because these topographic slices are only a few centimeters high, they take 20-60 minutes to print on most resin 3D printers.

Congratulations! You just 3D printed a topographic map using Equator Studios.