Cho Oyu and Ngozumpa Glacier

thingiverse

Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain globally, and Ngozumpa glacier's base are the focus of a four-quadrant map. These quadrants include Cho Oyu in the northwest, the southern end of Ngozumpa in the southwest, and two eastern quadrants encompassing Mt. Everest in the northeast and southeast. I printed the northwest and southwest sections for a friend's expedition to study the glacier. This map was created using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 90-m resolution data. In the future, I will post instructions on how to make similar maps with data from other sources. Currently, Blender models in both displacement map and mesh formats, as well as STL files are available for download. The STL files are scaled for printing on a Makerbot Cupcake CNC with recessed screws. All tools used were open-source: Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) to convert SRTM HGT files to GEOTIFF, GIMP for cropping the GEOTIFFs, Blender for generating displacement maps and meshes from GEOTIFFS, and Meshlab to close any holes. Initially, the default scale of the Blender displacement map was incorrect; a test print and caliper measurements were used to determine the correct scale, with each 90-m pixel in X/Y representing one meter. The height of Cho Oyu's summit and a nearby valley was used to confirm the vertical relief accuracy of the map when compared to terrain maps from Google Maps and the model's dimensions.