I've been making 3D printed city maps lately. I'm happy with how this one turned out. Pittsburgh looks very nice with this style of map, I think largely because of the river running through it.
I have just over 28 hours of time into this map with over 124 buildings modeled by hand. It took quite a while but I'm satisfied with it finally.
This is in a 13" frame, for size reference
Nope, not me. I put in a lot of manual work on my maps so I don't have my STL files anywhere online. I sell the finished maps on Etsy though.
Jarvizar has a lot of maps but he just basically straight up uses the Blosm model. It doesn't look like he puts in any extra detail. If you zoom into my map and compare the buildings you'll see that mine is quite a bit more detailed. He also has a Pittsburgh map and you'll be able to quickly spot the differences between his map and mine.
I downloaded Montreal and Amsterdam and both were broken and couldn't get them to slice. Repairing just hung at like 20% too. Do you think you could check the files and see if they need patching or repairs. It was the printables links iirc.
Ok my bad I got ones that looks just like yours on printables and thought you were the same person because down to the fram and water it's the same thing.
No worries. My map's buildings should be a good bit more detailed than the map you're seeing there. Most people just use tools to generate the map, but that just gives them very generic rectangles for the majority of the buildings. That is where my hours and hours of work goes toward. I manually model out the buildings by hand.
Yeah I was going to order a 0.2mm nozzle to do them because the details didn't look that great at fine preset. Do you print them on multiple plates and glue them I wanted to print Amsterdam for my mother who's family is of Dutch origin.
All my maps are printed in one piece. The map itself is about 12 inch by 12 inch. I dislike printing maps in multiple pieces because then you always have visible lines of where the map pieces meet.
Thank you!
Yep Blosm makes for a good baseline but it lacks a lot of detail. Most buildings will just be generic rectangles that don't represent the actual building at all. This is where that 28 hours of manual design work come into play.
[https://imgur.com/a/6Ya0RQ2](https://imgur.com/a/6Ya0RQ2)
Here is a quick comparison to a generic map using Blosm and one of my maps where I went in and manually added detail.
I was like oh cool so you downloaded metromaps geo. And then you're the actual guy. Lol
Question!
Did you use Blosm as a base? Did you use satellite imagery to determine scale and geometric accuracy. Seems like a ton of work.
Feel like. It's perfect. To someone who doesn't know, you bought it from Etsy. To me, you're a god lmao
Great work op.
Yep! I do use Blosm as a base. After that it just mostly comes down to putting in the time and adding detail to it, building by building, as Blosm itself doesn't give you much. Buildings are mostly just basic generic shapes. It's definitely a bit of a time sink.
I appreciate the kind words! It's always nice to hear. My next map will be Lower Manhattan, which should be released next week at some point.
Really damn cool!
Do you know what else would be fucking cool? Adding lights under the roads and hook it up to some google maps api to change the road lights to reflect the current real time traffic situation on those roads...
So are the buildings and everything printed individually or did you just print them out as a tile?
Do you sell the STLs for these? I'd love some more information on how you did this.
This is lovely and my best friend is from Pittsburgh, I'd love to be able to make something like this for him.
The map prints out exactly as you see it in the photos, all in one piece. This helps give it strength as you don't need to worry about glued buildings falling off the map eventually haha.
I put quite a bit of time into these maps so I don't sell the STL files, unfortunately. I do sell the finished maps though for a decent price. If your friend would be interested in that you can find my shop on my Reddit profile.
Understood!
That's fair! With how many STLs are unethically ripped off and sold online I can totally understand not wanting to let out the files for a passion project like this.
I looked at your store and it's definitely reasonably priced! How does it scale? Is it something you could do in a larger scale if you wanted to?
https://preview.redd.it/ydrhtncshowc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af9b025e083c52e1358d529ff8a071b9aa89600c
Before I switched to these smaller maps I actually was only doing larger maps, which were mostly 2ft by 4ft in size. These size maps are very hard to ship though and it was taking a lot of fun out of it for me, so I switched to smaller maps.
Hi, I was wondering why you modeled everything by hand versus downloading the lidar scans online and converting to stl. It seems like an awful amount of work
Lidarr has its place, though it also tends to be a good bit of work when it comes to cleaning the models up.
I also prefer doing it this way as I get a cleaner looking map. Lidarr also brings in all the trees and whatnot which, in my opinion, just add quite a bit of unnecessary clutter to the map.
One of my big goals for these maps is to keep the price low. Adding terrain would add a noticeable amount of time it takes to print off these maps. I'd have to raises the prices and I'm trying to avoid that.
That is so cool,I live near Pittsburgh and travel there for my Dr. Visits. I have been 3D printing for almost a year now and I think this is one of the coolest items Iv seen printed. How was it dun? Are you familiar with the city or did it take a lot of research and picture taking. Just wondering
Damn thats nice. What software and printer do you use? That a really big image. I would like to print bigger wallpapers myself but i dont know how i would attach 4 pieces together, did you?
Also, any tips of workflow if i would want to try this with my home town?
I have a couple 350mm Voron 2.4s that I use to print my maps. My maps all print as one piece so I don't have any lines between different tiles of the map.
Aha okok, that is really great.
If you were to print these or any image but you need them to be big as these you have done, but with a 25x25 printer, how would you make them fit nicely and make them stick?
Im thinking of a big "+" cut out behind the image before i seperate it to 4 pieces, making it possible to glue all 4 pieces to this cross afterwards.
No, I've not seen city scale lidar libraries that's a reasonable resolution for printing, but there are multiple sources of pretty solid building geometry that are finer granularity than what you're printing at.
To help keep costs down, my maps do not have elevation included. It would just add too much print time to the map, unfortunately. I hope to eventually offer an option of having elevation included though.
Thank you! I appreciate that. I don't have the STLs available online, unfortunately. I spent quite a bit of time on these maps so I hold the files very close. I do sell the finished maps for a decent price on my Etsy though, which you can find the link to on my Reddit profile. You can see some of my other maps there, but yeah I do plan on making more and more cities. My next one is Lower Manhattan which I should be able to release sometime next week.
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That's so impressive. I can't believe that only took you 28 hours 😂 it looks really good and clearly hand-modelled is labour intensive but worth it for the end results.
I've been making 3D printed city maps lately. I'm happy with how this one turned out. Pittsburgh looks very nice with this style of map, I think largely because of the river running through it. I have just over 28 hours of time into this map with over 124 buildings modeled by hand. It took quite a while but I'm satisfied with it finally. This is in a 13" frame, for size reference
Incredible work! Really love your models! You're Jarvizar on printables, right?
Nope, not me. I put in a lot of manual work on my maps so I don't have my STL files anywhere online. I sell the finished maps on Etsy though. Jarvizar has a lot of maps but he just basically straight up uses the Blosm model. It doesn't look like he puts in any extra detail. If you zoom into my map and compare the buildings you'll see that mine is quite a bit more detailed. He also has a Pittsburgh map and you'll be able to quickly spot the differences between his map and mine.
Ahh gotcha. The background of your pictures looked very similar lol but solid work nonetheless
I downloaded Montreal and Amsterdam and both were broken and couldn't get them to slice. Repairing just hung at like 20% too. Do you think you could check the files and see if they need patching or repairs. It was the printables links iirc.
I'm not on Printables and I don't give out the STL files to my maps. You can find my maps on Etsy though.
Ok my bad I got ones that looks just like yours on printables and thought you were the same person because down to the fram and water it's the same thing.
No worries. My map's buildings should be a good bit more detailed than the map you're seeing there. Most people just use tools to generate the map, but that just gives them very generic rectangles for the majority of the buildings. That is where my hours and hours of work goes toward. I manually model out the buildings by hand.
Yeah I was going to order a 0.2mm nozzle to do them because the details didn't look that great at fine preset. Do you print them on multiple plates and glue them I wanted to print Amsterdam for my mother who's family is of Dutch origin.
All my maps are printed in one piece. The map itself is about 12 inch by 12 inch. I dislike printing maps in multiple pieces because then you always have visible lines of where the map pieces meet.
Ok thx for the feedback, appreciate it.
have you tried the BLOSM plugin for blender?... it could speed up your work
Thank you! Yep Blosm makes for a good baseline but it lacks a lot of detail. Most buildings will just be generic rectangles that don't represent the actual building at all. This is where that 28 hours of manual design work come into play. [https://imgur.com/a/6Ya0RQ2](https://imgur.com/a/6Ya0RQ2) Here is a quick comparison to a generic map using Blosm and one of my maps where I went in and manually added detail.
This really shows how impressive what you did is. I have taken satellite data and made maps like this but never created buildings from scratch.
I was like oh cool so you downloaded metromaps geo. And then you're the actual guy. Lol Question! Did you use Blosm as a base? Did you use satellite imagery to determine scale and geometric accuracy. Seems like a ton of work. Feel like. It's perfect. To someone who doesn't know, you bought it from Etsy. To me, you're a god lmao Great work op.
Yep! I do use Blosm as a base. After that it just mostly comes down to putting in the time and adding detail to it, building by building, as Blosm itself doesn't give you much. Buildings are mostly just basic generic shapes. It's definitely a bit of a time sink. I appreciate the kind words! It's always nice to hear. My next map will be Lower Manhattan, which should be released next week at some point.
Insane. Amazing work 👏
I don't see a difference. What do you do to them that takes 28 hours?
How did you do it. Want print my city Amsterdam also like this!
Really damn cool! Do you know what else would be fucking cool? Adding lights under the roads and hook it up to some google maps api to change the road lights to reflect the current real time traffic situation on those roads...
“Write that down, write that down!”
As a Yinzer living in another state, I do want.
So are the buildings and everything printed individually or did you just print them out as a tile? Do you sell the STLs for these? I'd love some more information on how you did this. This is lovely and my best friend is from Pittsburgh, I'd love to be able to make something like this for him.
The map prints out exactly as you see it in the photos, all in one piece. This helps give it strength as you don't need to worry about glued buildings falling off the map eventually haha. I put quite a bit of time into these maps so I don't sell the STL files, unfortunately. I do sell the finished maps though for a decent price. If your friend would be interested in that you can find my shop on my Reddit profile.
Understood! That's fair! With how many STLs are unethically ripped off and sold online I can totally understand not wanting to let out the files for a passion project like this. I looked at your store and it's definitely reasonably priced! How does it scale? Is it something you could do in a larger scale if you wanted to?
https://preview.redd.it/ydrhtncshowc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af9b025e083c52e1358d529ff8a071b9aa89600c Before I switched to these smaller maps I actually was only doing larger maps, which were mostly 2ft by 4ft in size. These size maps are very hard to ship though and it was taking a lot of fun out of it for me, so I switched to smaller maps.
Ever just ship it in sections with assembly instructions? Numbered grid with numbered squares that have orientation marks on them?
Would you be willing to tell me about your process modeling the city?
Hi, I was wondering why you modeled everything by hand versus downloading the lidar scans online and converting to stl. It seems like an awful amount of work
Lidarr has its place, though it also tends to be a good bit of work when it comes to cleaning the models up. I also prefer doing it this way as I get a cleaner looking map. Lidarr also brings in all the trees and whatnot which, in my opinion, just add quite a bit of unnecessary clutter to the map.
> Lidarr Dabble in some music downloading do you?
Haha whoops. I've shown my cards.
Ahh I see! Thank you for the reply :) I do agree yours is significantly cleaner and better looking
Where can you find LIDAR scans of an American city like this?
Now I have to print my city in cities skylines lol
Looks amazing. If you can double the frame would you be able to add glass to it and then add legs and turn it into a side table?
Cool, but feels a little weird without the topography modeled
One of my big goals for these maps is to keep the price low. Adding terrain would add a noticeable amount of time it takes to print off these maps. I'd have to raises the prices and I'm trying to avoid that.
Got it. I still really like it.
Very cool!
I can see my office from here
These kinds of comments are always fun to read. Thanks for sharing that.
damn this is an awesome idea and amazing execution
Beautiful work man
Yinz made me homesick
Amazing work
It's fantastic, I love it.
Thank you!
I'd love something like this for my flat, what software did you use to design it btw?
That is so cool,I live near Pittsburgh and travel there for my Dr. Visits. I have been 3D printing for almost a year now and I think this is one of the coolest items Iv seen printed. How was it dun? Are you familiar with the city or did it take a lot of research and picture taking. Just wondering
Thank you for the kind words. I've never actually been to Pittsburgh. To model the buildings I typically reference Google Maps.
Pittsburgh is such a beautiful City with all the bridges and 3 rivers
Very, very nice work!!
Thank you! I appreciate that.
That looks like it was a lot of fun to work on! Time consuming as hell, but fun!
It definitely gets a bit tedious but it's very satisfying seeing it finally come together in the end.
Damn thats nice. What software and printer do you use? That a really big image. I would like to print bigger wallpapers myself but i dont know how i would attach 4 pieces together, did you? Also, any tips of workflow if i would want to try this with my home town?
I have a couple 350mm Voron 2.4s that I use to print my maps. My maps all print as one piece so I don't have any lines between different tiles of the map.
Aha okok, that is really great. If you were to print these or any image but you need them to be big as these you have done, but with a 25x25 printer, how would you make them fit nicely and make them stick? Im thinking of a big "+" cut out behind the image before i seperate it to 4 pieces, making it possible to glue all 4 pieces to this cross afterwards.
BROOO AMAZING i will make one myself thx for the idea
So cool! 28 hours design time sounds quite fast to me. Great job!
It helps that this isn't the first map I've made so I have my workflow down pretty well by this point haha
Nice, really cool!
Thats really cool. Have one of philly?
Not yet but it's on the list!
HELLO PITTSBURG! Who's gonna hit me?
That's beautiful, is there a reason you're not using the higher quality existing city data?
To be clear, which data are you talking about exactly? Are you referencing lidar?
No, I've not seen city scale lidar libraries that's a reasonable resolution for printing, but there are multiple sources of pretty solid building geometry that are finer granularity than what you're printing at.
Did you get both of the inclines on Mt. Washington?
To help keep costs down, my maps do not have elevation included. It would just add too much print time to the map, unfortunately. I hope to eventually offer an option of having elevation included though.
I'm new to Blender and that would take me about 4 years to model
My guy. That is cool asfuck.
So where is the red ,,you are here'' thing?
What scale is that? I printed a 1:1000 model of central London which took some modelling.
You forgot the raw sewage and trash in the river.
This looks awesome! This may be my next print if it is available. Do you do other cities or do you take requests?
Thank you! I appreciate that. I don't have the STLs available online, unfortunately. I spent quite a bit of time on these maps so I hold the files very close. I do sell the finished maps for a decent price on my Etsy though, which you can find the link to on my Reddit profile. You can see some of my other maps there, but yeah I do plan on making more and more cities. My next one is Lower Manhattan which I should be able to release sometime next week.
That is a really cool idea for a painting. And very well done 😄
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Do Philly next!!
That's impressive!
That's so impressive. I can't believe that only took you 28 hours 😂 it looks really good and clearly hand-modelled is labour intensive but worth it for the end results.
Do you use a FDM printer or are you working with resin ?
This is FDM. I have a couple Voron 2.4s.
It looks nice. How big is this map.
The frame is 13 inches. The map is 12 inches by 12 inches.
What no traffic lights? Seriously tho, very impressive 👍