3D Print Your Home Town!

In this instructable I will show you how to:

1. Find a map or satellite image of your home town
2. Edit and convert that image into a 3D printable file
3. Slice that file with filament changes to replicate the colours of the original image

I know it looks and probably sounds a little complicated but it takes, at most, about 15 minutes to do!
(not counting print time of course!)

*********************************************************************

A little background on this project:

I moved around a lot as I was growing up and while that definitely had it's downsides, the places I lived all left their little impact on me so I thought it'd be nice to set myself a little project to remember them all.

I wanted to make something I could have on display to remind me of where I've been and come from and that I could add to in future so settled on small prints of each town I'd called home.

I wanted them to be something a little different and I'm a smidge into 3D printing at the moment so I set myself the challenge of trying to create something that looked good but had that third dimension to it which is how I settled on these 3D printed maps!

I tried a couple of different approaches (using different types of map as a base) and would say both were pretty effective so it's up to you which you prefer - I used the same technique for both anyway - but I settled on the satellite images in the end as I liked the pop of colour on the wall!

There are a couple of pics of a view of Australia dotted through this instructable - this was designed by me for 3DPrintBunny who printed it and has given permission for me to use her pics here :)
Check her instructables out too if you love 3D printing!!

3D Printer

Filaments

The colours you need may well depend on your maps but for satellite images of the UK I used these filaments:

I actually would recommend against using silk PLAs as I think the shine distracts a little but I was making use of what I had!

• eSun Green PLA
• Eryone Bronze PLA
• eSun Bone White PLA
• Geeetech Silver PLA
• 3D Tomorrow Black PLA

First thing we're going to need is a map!

• Head over to Google Maps and search for the location you want to print!
• Zoom in or out, rotate the camera etc. and make sure you have the full area you want in your picture in your view.

Now you have a few options here in terms of what you want your map to look like:

• You can choose to use the default map view or use a satellite image
  • Personally I think the satellite image is more interesting to look at but that's just personal preference!
• You can choose whether to keep the labels (road names etc)
  • I'd suggest removing these unless you're printing fairly large as tiny details are likely to be lost so they may not be readable

To customise your map in Google Maps:

I'll use Loughborough as my example - I went to uni there!

• In the bottom left of the view, hover over the box that says 'Layers' - pic 1
• Here you can choose whether you want to use the 'map' view or the 'satellite' view! - pic 2
• Choose 'More' - pic 3
• It may look greyed out but if you click the tick-box that says 'Labels' the labels will disappear - pic 4

Finally, using whichever tool you prefer, you'll need to save that map - you can simply take a screenshot or I prefer to use snip & sketch/snipping tool - either way you will need to save your screenshot as an image file

Of course this is only one way of finding your map - you don't have to use google maps, any map service would be fine or you could even find photos of maps or scan in your own map and use that image for the next steps if you prefer!

Next step is to make that image printable!

You may be familiar with lithophanes but in case you aren't - they're a super cool way of printing pictures whereby the lighter areas are more shallow and dark areas are thicker so that when they're held up to a light, you see the original image!

We are not making a lithophane.

To save ourselves a lot of faffing, though, we will be cheating a little by using a lithophane tool to create our stl

I prefer itslitho but if you have another tool you prefer then feel free to use it, it shouldn't make much difference :)

• Head to this link to open the itslitho web tool
• Click 'Upload' and upload the image file you made earlier - pic 1
• In the menu bar above the upload button, click the 'Edit' tab
• You'll want to adjust the sliders until each area of grey is as distinct from the others as possible
  • I find that the best option here is usually to reduce brightness and increase contrast - pic 2
• Next switch to the 'Model' tab
• Make any alterations you like - pic 3
  • The only changes I make are to set the shape options to be 200mm wide and 150mm high so each of my prints are the same height and make sure crop is enabled or your map may be distorted
• Once you're happy with the preview, click download in the bottom right - pic 3
• You'll be given a few options - just click the one that says 'lithophane' and your stl should download shortly - pic 4

Thanks to the way that lithophanes work, the lighter areas of the map are the lowest points in the stl and the darker areas are the higher areas - this means that rather than having to split the map into separate stls for each colour or painting the colours on in something like Chroma and then using a multi material printer or Mosaic Palette, we have very quickly and easily made an stl that can be printed on just a standard 3D printer and by just using filament changes at specific layers we can achieve a very similar effect with far less work!

I find PrusaSlicer is the easiest tool to use for this but it's entirely possible in Cura, S3D and most other slicers too - if you're using a different slicer and aren't sure how to add filament changes, CHEP has a great guide on youtube.

• First thing you'll need to do is import your stl file into your slicer
  • By default it will be positioned standing upright as this will get best results when printing a lithophane - for our needs you want to rotate it so it's laying flat on the build plate - pic 1
  • If you're using PrusaSlicer or a slicer that checks for errors in the mesh, there's also a fair chance it'll show you a warning saying there are errors in the file - it should print fine anyway but you can either let the slicer repair it or run it through something like NetFabb to be sure.
• Next, just slice your file as you normally would - I'd suggest a layer height no higher than .2mm and you'll have better results if you're patient enough to slow the print speeds down a little.
• Once it's sliced and you're able to preview the print, we can add our filament changes
  • To add a filament change just move the slider to the right of the preview and click the plus symbol where you want the colour to change.
    
    • This may take a little trial and error and I can't tell you exactly where you'll need them as it'll depend on the image you used but I've included 3 pics here to show how you might want to place your colours depending on your images.
    • If you're using PrusaSlicer and want to preview it in the colours you plan to print in, you can right click on the slider in which your filament changes are shown (just right of the buildplate) and it will let you set colours for each section
• Finally, once you're happy with the preview - slice again and export

Quick Tip: I've found that saving the file with the order of colours in the name helps me to keep track of which colours I need to swap in e.g. "Loughborough - white, tan, grey, light green, dark green, black.stl"

This isn't a particularly involved step!

Just set your print off as you usually would but bear in mind that every now and then your print will pause automatically so that you can swap the colours over.

Just follow the instructions on your printer's screen and be careful not to move the printhead in the process or you may find that when your print resumes, it's printing in the wrong place - honestly most printers make this pretty easy and won't allow the printhead to move while the print is paused but just a heads up in case yours is the exception!

Of course it's totally up to you how you want to display these really.

I liked the idea of having almost a timeline of places I'd lived so mine are going to be arranged in a row on my wall - it's a very short row right now (is 2 technically a row at all?) but I still have several to print before my project is complete and I'm sure I'll have more to add in future too!

I've also included a pic of a map I designed for my mum who lives in Australia - you can really see the textures in that one!

I hope you enjoyed this little project anyway and I'd love to hear if anyone gives it a go themselves!

Let me know if you have any questions too - I'm happy to help :)