Wellington, Central city and Miramar peninsula

thingiverse

A 3D map of Wellington City stretches out to Miramar in breathtaking detail, perfectly captured in this 20 cm square print that leaves you wondering at its magnificence. This relief model showcases the nuances of the city's terrain with crystal clarity, inviting exploration. Creating printable models of New Zealand locations is an innovative project that I'm excited about, and to guide others who may follow my footsteps (including myself when memory fails in a few months' time), I've detailed my process for achieving this intricate landscape art. Gaining access to height information from Koordinates.com yields immense TIFF files that become the starting point. Using Photoshop CS6 as a first step helps crop the image into usable portions, laying the groundwork for more sophisticated transformations. With Mesh From Depth Map -> Plane function selected within Create New 3D Object, the image transforms further - this stage calls for careful Z-axis scaling until an aesthetically pleasing form materializes and is then exported as an .obj. The real game-changer is Meshmixer. A series of carefully orchestrated actions (Select -> Edit -> Extrude -> z axis) seamlessly fashions a model that is more than just pretty; it's print-ready. That was a simple task! And now, to aid in sharing the technique with like-minded folks and ensure that steps don't get lost in time, two tutorials are readily available for viewers who need guidance through each step: Photoshop tutorial - [link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLE_TklD0oE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLE_TklD0oE) Meshmixer Tutorial - [link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwZOgcqB1RY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwZOgcqB1RY)