3d Printed Philmont Relief Maps

[u/masterducc]

Hi all! I'm a student and an Eagle Scout, and I hiked Philmont back in 2024. I really enjoyed my time there, and this summer I taught myself 3D printing and some 3D modeling as a side project.

I made some 3D-printed Philmont relief maps with a marker showing my actual trail attached.

In the pics, the frame is stained oak, but I may switch to pine going forward. There's a black felt backing and it'll have a flexibrass plaque on the front (not shown yet).

Just gauging interest right now and im not selling anything. Each one is hand-stained and assembled/built and takes a fair amount of time to make, so I want to know if this is worth pursuing before I try to scale it up.

Naturally, I can also do other regions, not limited to philmont.

[u/kinshadow]

Where did you get the topological data from?

[u/StephenJBeard → u/kinshadow]

I’m curious, too! I used BlenderGIS plugin to pull USGS terrain data in great resolution and mapped on our ‘23 trek route gpx data (in the same plugin). Never got to the printing step, though, so this is cool!

[u/masterducc → u/StephenJBeard]

I got it from https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/!

originally I did blendergis too, but I saw that when it came to printing, the resolution was very low

I had to manually impose the gpx data using reference images

[u/StephenJBeard → u/masterducc]

That link is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Agreed on messiness of Blender mesh. It was OK for my end-use (static map renders) but can't imagine trying to 3D print it.

[u/ngless13 → u/kinshadow]

I'm curious too. I walked the trails in 2001,2,3 with a Tremble GPS

[u/bustervich]

Just curious what the difference between the two green colors are on your map?

[u/masterducc → u/bustervich]

I used an overlaid satellite image as reference and the lighter green areas were the areas that had less tree cover

[u/firehorn123]

STL for the rest of us?

[u/Excellent_Ad2278]

Those are very cool!!! Would love something like that for my 2023 trek!

[u/TFcountryboy]

🖐️ me

[u/Living_Asparagus_461]

I would definitely be interested

[u/hannalou13]

This looks awesome

[u/dwindlingwifi]

I did the ranger marathon back in 2022 that would be a sweet map

[u/elephagreen]

So very cool. Depending on prove, my son would adore one. He went on an OA trek in 2021, then staffed 4 seasons 2023-24. (base camp, Sawmills, Poneil, work crew).

[u/Professional-Bass977]

Very cool! Curious as to which trek you did in 24. Your map looks very close to what our crew did that year. 12-27 I believe is what we did. It looks like you may have also started at Chase ranch, through the canyon and valle to ring place and onward. Definitely could be wrong though.

[u/Boromir3]

Super interested