Boston CityPrint K-5

thingiverse

Finally - you can download and 3D print the terrain and buildings for any part of Boston, or all of it! These tiles cover the entire city, with every building accounted for in meticulous detail. First, use the map at the BPDA 3D Smart Model site to find your tile, then head to our Collection of tiles and look for the code ("J-9" for example). After that, simply download and print. We recommend white PLA, a layer height of 0.2mm, four top layers, two bottom layers, and a little retraction to prevent stringing between buildings. Alternatively, if you'd like a set of printed and finished tiles, please contact us for pricing. The geometry is measured in millimeters, so if you print it as-is, you'll get a 100x100mm (4"x4") tile at a scale of 1:10,000. At this scale, all of Boston would be six feet high and seven and a half feet wide. If you print it 200% larger, the model will be at a scale of 1:5,000 and each tile will measure 200x200mm (8"x8"). If every tile were printed, the resulting map would be twelve and a half feet high and fifteen feet wide. This project is being done by the CityPrint initiative, and you can see their progress at the Boston Society for Architecture Space at 290 Congress Street. All models come with four cylindrical holes at the bottom that perfectly fit six-millimeter diameter, one-millimeter thick disc magnets when printed to original size. We recommend gluing two or four Neodymium magnets into those spaces - they cost around twenty cents each from various online retailers. Two will be enough to stick to a refrigerator, while four provides a strong grip. Simply scuff the top of the magnet with 100 grit sandpaper for better adhesion. If you print the piece at 1:5,000 scale, you'll need to use twelve-millimeter diameter by two-millimeter thick disc magnets. While the BPDA site already has 3D models of all terrain and building geometry in various formats, none of those are ready to be printed. Those data contain gaps, holes, and overlaps that need to be cleaned up. We did all that work so you don't have to - just download and print any tile you want at home, or contact us for pricing. MiniCty offers remarkably detailed, professionally 3D-printed cityscapes for dozens of US and world cities, using data far more detailed than what's available in these tiles. Check out our website (link below) to see our work. This project wouldn't have happened without the freely available data from the Boston Planning & Development Agency (provided without warranty) and support from Artists For Humanity. The work to prepare and post these tiles was done by Suleiman Hussein and MiniCty founder Mark Stock. [BPDA 3D Smart Model site](http://www.bostonplans.org/3d-data-maps/3d-smart-model/3d-data-download) [Thingiverse Collection of all Boston Tiles](https://www.thingiverse.com/minicty/collections/boston-city-tiles) [CityPrint project](https://www.architects.org/exhibitions/cityprint) [Boston Planning & Development Agency](http://www.bostonplans.org/) [Artists For Humanity](http://afhboston.org/) [MiniCty](http://minicty.com/) [MiniCty on Etsy](https://www.etsy.com/shop/MiniCty)