Make a Bulletin Board Map!

Whether it's my Japan travel plans, my college list, or a final project for a computer science class, I... really like visualizing things with maps. It helps me understand how things relate spacially, but really, they just look cool! So when I heard my friend's birthday was coming up, I had the perfect gift idea: I made a 3D map to help her visualize and keep track of the 20 national parks she's been to - and those she hasn't been to yet. A big update from her plain paper checklist, for sure.

This instructable will walk you through making, 3D printing, and customizing your own wall map display. It's a great way to decorate an empty wall, commemorate a memorable trip, or have some fun. I'll walk you through some ways to customize and decorate your map according to your needs as well.

If you're just interested in printing my maps, you can print my National Parks progress map from the files below.

Equipment/Software/Skills

1. Fusion360, or other CAD software: know the basics.
2. InkScape, or other vector graphics editor software: know the very basics - how vector art works and such,
3. 3D printer, to print the map. I used PLA of different colors, but ABS and most other filaments also work.

Other

1. A bulletin board to mount your map; you can also mount it on the wall, but if you intend on changing in the future, a bulletin board is better. I got a modular one from a Walmart supercenter for $15.
2. Push pins: normal ones to fix the map. You can get other types to hang your favorite photos, pins, or other!
3. Decorations may include photos, yarn (like the stuff police detectives use), collectible stickers/pins - anything you want!

Before we begin, let's make a few decisions on what to make. Write these down - they will guide your design process.

1. Why are you making a map? Is it to reminisce a trip - a graduation trip to Japan, a honeymoon trip to Greece, or a family vacation to China? Do you want to track what countries, states, or national parks you've been to? Are you making a diorama, board game, bucket list map, or educational map?
2. Where is your map? What geographical regions do you want in your map - is it the entire world, an entire country, or a state or city?
3. As you can see from my examples, these are maps for larger scales. If you're doing a city, you might want to check out a tutorial like this.
4. What purpose will your map serve? Is it going to be interactive, to keep track of places you've been? Will it be customizable, allowing you to add things and tweak it constantly? Do you want a permanent decorative fixture to commemorate a trip?
5. What landmarks will your map have? Do you care about each country, each state, or specific landmarks? Do you want a free map where you can locate any random place? Do you want small symbols only, or do you also want to affix pins, photos, and yarn?

An example, from my national parks map:

1. I'm making this map as a birthday gift for my friend who loves national parks, so that she can track which parks she's been to (why). I want my map to cover all 50 US states, as that is where the majority of US national parks are (where). My map will be interactive, so my friend can add to the map and keep track of where she's been (what purpose). My map is minimal, with trees (and other custom icons possible) to mark each national park. Pins and photos can be added on the sides or the map itself - the map splits into 4 parts to create space per region (what landmarks).

Ready? Let's dive into it!

One of the best ways to turn an image into a CAD sketch is with an SVG file (an image file defined by math, not pixels). Find a high-quality SVG map of the region you want to map - if there are extras, we can remove them later. The higher quality, the better.

1. Ex: I googled "US map SVG" and stumbled upon this excellent Wikimedia SVG. Wikipedia has a lot of other SVGs you might be looking for, so it's a good place to start.
2. Try not to find an SVG with too much detail; for example, this SVG is just right, while a map like this is too detailed; you might give your CAD software a hard time (Fusion360 isn't exactly meant for this kind of modelling), and plus your printer can't print that detailed anyway.

Upload your SVG to Inkscape or another vector graphics editor. We need to "clean" and edit the SVG to our tastes.

1. Scale and visualize. Looking at the top of your screen in Inkscape, you can see that your SVGs are described in real-world units. Change the document size to your bulletin board size and play around with how big you want your map to be.
2. Resize, separate, delete. Envision how you want your map to be. If you want your map split into regions (as I have done), split the vector shapes into different organizational layers. You can change the locations of things and resize them (I made Alaska bigger to fit 8 parks). If there are extra regions you don't want, select and delete them. Don't forget that your printer has a max printbed size, which may necessitate splitting your map up. Don't worry, we can rejoin regions later.
3. Make it printable. Sharp corners will chip easily and be dangerous; smooth them out or remove them. Narrow peninsulas will be difficult to print and break easily; remove them now, or we can fix it with "bridging" later. Islands will be "floating", so if they're insignificant, delete them. If they're important (like the Channnel Islands, which are a national park), leave them - we can fix this with "bridging" later too.

It might be a good idea to take advantage of organizational layers and folders to split your sections into groups.

In Fusion or another CAD software, make a component for one of your sections. Make a new sketch and import your SVG. In Fusion, SVGs are not imported with the appropriate scaling. I used the measure tool to compare the height of the sketch with the height I specified in Inkscape, then found the scaling factor and put that into the import window to get the correct size. The scaling factor will be the same for all your sketches.

Next, embellish your sketch as you would like! I made these changes:

1. Added each state's abbreviation to emboss into the final map - a nice touch.
2. Added 5mm hole at the location of each national park, so I can insert pins later. I tried to space them farther from their actual geographical location so the pins wouldn't hit each other.
3. Added 2 larger holes with 9.5mm outer and 2.5mm inner diameter. These are holes to mount with the push pins.
4. Used "bridging": sketched out some of the ocean regions with curves to incorporate the islands. You can also add in some ocean to support fragile regions - I did this with the Massachusetts peninsula. I think I did this in a slightly ugly way, feel free to tune as you like.

If your sketch is not colored blue like mine, this means your regions are not enclosed. Look for where there is a gap in the outline, and connect it to close up the shape. This is necessary to extrude.

Extrude your sketch to the desired thickness; I went with 5mm. Then, add your embellishments:

1. Outline: I wanted the borders between states to be slightly indented (4mm thickness), but there is no enclosed border region to extrude! To achieve the effect, I (A) extruded a state, (B) offset its faces inward by half of the border width I wanted, (C) repeated the process for each state, and (D) extruded the entire sketch again to a lower height, joining it with the original pieces. I did not offset faces on the top and bottom, or on the map borders - coastlines, international borders, and such.
2. Tip: In Fusion, freeform select may help you out!
3. Tip: In Fusion, if the geometry is too complex/jagged to use offset face, create an offset rounded surface, use it to split the body, and remove the extra parts! If your surface is too short, you can also extend it tangentially.
4. Islands: to "ocean bridge", simply extrude the ocean regions you sketched to a lower height (3mm thickness).
5. Holes: to help the pins stay in the map, I extruded my holes with an inward taper. For a 5mm hole, I started at 5.2mm on the surface and tapered to a 4.8mm hole at the bottom. For the larger push pin holes, I made the larger circle (9.5mm) 2mm thick for pin head, and the smaller circle (2.5mm) go through the body so it can push into the bulletin board.
6. Text: I embossed the state abbreviations to 4mm thickness, like the outline.

If you added any other custom features, now is the time to add it to your solid body! Repeat steps 3-5 for each of your map sections; I repeated it for each section of my map. Once you're ready, move on.

We need to add something in CAD to connect the different parts of our map physically.

1. Joints/mates: connect your components together in CAD as they would in real life; take advantage of flat regions or corner edges on the border between two regions to align everything.
2. Sketch: start a new sketch on the back of your map. Sketch a "connector" in the rough shape I have attached in the image above; feel free to make things bigger and smaller. Make sure each circle lies on a different side of the boundary, so each circle interfaces with a different part; this is what connects them.
3. Extrude: first, extrude the rectangular outside as a new body; I did 1mm. Then, extrude the two center circles to a little less than the height of the map; I did 4mm. Join these to your first extrusion. Use boolean/combine to remove the connector shape from both parts of the map. Finally, taper the circular hole in the map so the connector tightens when we put it in; I made the starting radius 0.2mm more and the ending radius 0.15mm less than the circle radius on the connector. You can use trig to find the taper angle for your specific map thickness.
4. Repeat: do this for all parts that need to be collected.

The connectors are similar to lego bricks; the 2 circular pins push in and tighten, locking 2 adjacent map pieces together.

We'll need some smaller printed pieces! Here are some simple ideas to get you thinking:

1. Simple pin. In my national parks map, I printed some green tree logos to mark parks I've been to. These are just a shape with a longer circular pin behind it that matches the diameter of the hole in the map. You can use SVGs to easily get any image you want - just make sure it's printable.
2. Pin remover. This is just a cylindrical pin with a larger base; the pin is smaller than the hole size (4mm) so you can push it in through the back and remove pins easily.
3. Pin attacher. If you have pins or badges like the junior ranger badges you get from national parks, you can print a pin with a small hole going through it on one end. Then, you can stick the safety pin of the badge through that hole and put it on the map.

1. Do one last check of all your files. Once you're ready, send it to print in BambuLab or your preferred slicing software! I like to print the front-facing face of my map on the baseplate so that they get the nice sheen instead of the ugly 3D printed surface.
2. Combine each piece of the map with connectors. Then, mount your map on the bulletin board with push pins.
3. Decorate your map! Add photos, pins, badges, or anything you would like.

I hope you like your new 3D printed map! If you have questions, feel free to leave them below. Until next time.

Brian