TerraPrinterLaunched in March 2025
Make your own
Practical guides to turning real places into 3D prints: choosing the area and the height, slicer settings, colour, cities, routes, lithophanes, puzzles and painting. Each one links to the free tools it describes.
A 3D-printed topographic map shows the real shape of the land: the peaks, valleys and coastlines you can only read from contour lines on paper. Here is how to make one of any place, from choosing the area to taking the print off the bed.
Vertical exaggeration stretches the heights of a terrain model so the shape of the land is easy to see. The right amount depends on how steep the place is and how much ground you fit on the print.
Terrain models are easy prints: a flat base, a surface with no overhangs and few fine parts. A few settings decide whether the hills look smooth and the details come out clean.
A colour map print starts with a file that keeps each colour as its own part. TerraPrinter makes that file for multi-material printers, and plans the filament swaps if you have a single nozzle.
TerraPrinter builds a 3D model of any town from OpenStreetMap: every mapped building at its real height, with streets, rail, water and parks on the real ground. This guide covers how big an area to pick, which settings matter for a city, and how to print small buildings cleanly.
A GPX file from your watch or phone is all you need to print a hike, a race or a ride as a raised line on the real hills. TerraPrinter drapes the route over the terrain, gives it its own colour, and can put several routes on one model.
A map lithophane is a thin print that looks plain until light shines through it. Then the mountains, canyons, craters or city streets appear, bright where the plastic is thin and dark where it is thick.
A mountain range, a national park or a whole region can be printed far bigger than one print bed. TerraPrinter's Large project mode cuts the area into tiles that all use the same scale and base height, so they meet edge to edge even if you print them weeks apart.
TerraPrinter's Puzzle style cuts a terrain model into interlocking pieces that fit back together into the real landscape. You choose the piece size, the shape of the edges and how tight they fit, and every piece downloads as its own file.
Paint brings out the shape of a terrain print: dark valleys, bright ridges, glossy lakes and white peaks. Most of the work is in a few simple steps, and a little set-up before printing makes them easier.
Pick any place on Earth, the Moon or Mars, and download a print-ready STL or 3MF. Free, with no account.
Open TerraPrinter
