Light-up Christmas village of your street

The real houses of your street as a little Christmas village. Every house is a hollow print that sits over a battery tealight, with windows and doors that glow, the roofs from the map and snow on top.

Find your street

Click a street to light up the houses along it, or click houses one by one to add or take them out (up to 12). Sheds and garages are left out of a whole street; click one to add it.

The village

Set out

As they stand: on the real street, both sides. A row or an arc: side by side, all facing you, for a mantelpiece or a shelf.

Size

A typical house about 7, 9 or 11.5 cm tall, all at one scale. Every house is at least big enough inside for its tealight: a narrow one is made a little wider, and a very big building is made smaller so it does not tower over the rest.

Roofs

Snow on the roofs Chimneys Little trees, where trees are mapped The street as a base, with a socket for each house A sign with the street's name

The sign says

Printer bed (the base is cut to fit)

Windows and walls

Window tops

Glow panes: a thin skin in every window

Open windows let the most light out. Glow panes are 0.8 mm thin on the inside of each opening: printed in translucent white they glow softly, like frosted glass.

Wall thickness

1.8 mm suits most printers. Thinner walls glow more in translucent filament.

Colours

In the 3MF every colour is its own part, for a multi-colour printer. On a one-nozzle printer, print it all in white and paint the roofs.

Download

Village card

One page to keep with the village or give with it: the street's name, a picture at night, which house is which, and the tealight and printing tips.

Free for personal use, and for selling up to $5,000 a year with a TerraPrinter credit. Bigger sellers need a commercial license. Keep the data credits. License

How the Christmas village works

Your real street

The houses come from OpenStreetMap: their outlines, their floors and, where it is mapped, the shape and height of the roof. Click a street and every house whose front faces it lights up, in order along the street. Houses with no roof on the map get a pitched one.

Hollow, with a tealight inside

Every house is a hollow shell open at the bottom, with walls the thickness you choose. Inside there is always room for a standard battery tealight and its flame: a house too narrow for one is made a little wider, and one too low gets taller walls.

Windows that glow

Windows are cut right through the walls, floor by floor, on every side that is not joined to another part of the house, with a door on the side facing the street and a little attic window in each gable. Leave them open, or add thin glow panes.

Made to print

Each house prints standing up with no supports. The roof's underside slopes like the roof itself, the window tops are short bridges or pointed at 45°, and the snow is its own part on top, so a multi-colour printer can make it white.

The street and its sign

The base is the real street between the houses (or a strip in front of a row), with a shallow socket for each house so it stays put, cut into pieces that fit your printer. The sign carries the street's name in raised letters.

Only real trees

Little trees go only where a tree is mapped near the houses, and move with their house when you set the village out in a row. Their branches rise at 45°, so they print standing too.

Buildings, streets and trees © OpenStreetMap contributors. Building heights in places from Overture Maps Foundation. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. More for your home: a model of your home, tree ornaments, lithophane lamps, open the TerraPrinter app or see more 3D map gift ideas.