Made my first attempt at a topographic laser cut map.
I’m pretty happy how it came out – and this is just the cardboard prototype.
Still thinking about other features I might add to the final map, but wanted to get some practice cutting and building a layer topographic map.
I used QGIS, data from here, and Illustrator, loosely based on the techniques described here: http://theshamblog.com/making-a-laser-cut-topo-map-the-design-phase/
This was so fun. I’m going to make a lot of these.
looks great. Lots of pieces to glue
I love topo maps! and thanks for the links.
I hate to see such a nice prototype go to waste. Maybe you can spray paint it and/or coat with resin or something, to make it more permanent.
Definitely. I actually kind of like the cardboard look of it 
I may finish the edges and make a little box for it and still hang it on my wall.
Very nice! I sometimes enjoy using cardboard for the end product. It’s fun and like to recycle.
Excellent use if bananas as a weight & measure 
This is exactly what I am trying to teach myself to do right now. The learning curve going from inkscape to 3D software is outrageous!
Do you mean GIS software? or are you actually using 3D software?
I use GIS (mapping software) to create contours, but still ultimately do a lot of the work in Illustrator (in 2D) 
I’m trying to learn sketchup, whichever category that falls into.
That’s actual 3D modeling.
Honestly I don’t know what’s going to be harder to learn GIS or 3D modeling =P both I expect to have a learning curve.
The advantage of 3D modeling is you can use that for lots of other (non-map) projects as well.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
Since I don’t know either of them and am struggling to find a good source of DEM info for my area, it is going to be a slow process. I’m debating going back to street maps. LOL
In the past I’ve had real success with this:
https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/LidarExplorer/index.html#/
Even though it’s for Lidar, I don’t use the Lidar, I select an AOI and download the DEMs.
However, I just tried it, and it wasn’t working :-/ seems to be some error.
In theory you can get the same data from:
https://apps.nationalmap.gov/downloader/#/
but I’ve had a less easy time here.
And right now it says something about an outage… maybe that’s the same issue causing the other error.
I just tried to do a search on that page… and it confirms that there’s the same error… which is actually a good sign, cause probably when this site:
https://www.sciencebase.gov/about/
is back up, everything should work again.
Where are you trying to get DEM data? I’m happy to help point you in the right direction.
Dem data is great. If I could even find a decent topo I can do it with Inkscape it will just be a long tedious process.
FYI… those USGS sites I linked above are working again 
Let me know if you have trouble finding DEM data.
Looking good. Now just add a few of the bathymetric ocean layers!
Navigating those sites alone has a learning curve, but I’ll learn.
