DEM2STL VS TouchTerrain_for_CAGEO

The code for producing this maps is at https://github.com/ansonl/DEM2STL and I am working on a more friendly way to present the code.

I have put the steps and description of how here https://github.com/ansonl/DEM2STL. The relevant parts are split between the README and scratch.sh files. I would like to bring all the steps into a single script or app that people can run in the future but I'm still making changes to the calculations to improve the result.

I put most of my steps online in the README file here https://github.com/ansonl/DEM2STL that you can follow along and all the tools used are free.

I can't speak for the jigsaw part, but the topographic part is getting easier and easier. https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/ will spit out an STL of pretty much anywhere on Earth.

https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/ is a great source for free .stl terrain models. But these folks have the absolute best I've seen: https://maps.equatorstudios.com/ Gotta pay for more than a few models though.

I used https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu - you can import a KML file, hidden in Area Selection options. To generate KML, I went on google earth and clicked a whole bunch of times.

Always happy to share what I know, though it may seem strange to others. If anyone wants to attempt terrain carving, they should. Answered this question above briefly. I buy quality data from these folks. Free models that can be quite serviceable can be had from multiple places like this.

https://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/ (up to 10m resolution) and https://jthatch.com/Terrain2STL/ (90m resolution) can be even simpler if you're just getting into it, and can produce awesome models, but they use lower resolution data sets... so they won't show the fine details that really pop. Lidar based datasets can get down to 1m resolution, or even lower for some datasets. It depends on the scale and size of the object you want to print, really. But having models of many of the peaks and canyons I've hiked, and now my local neighborhood and more... it's pretty awesome.

The map scale is 1:2500000 with a 5x vertical exaggeration and the 3MF files have the base and waterline objects aligned for printing. USGS data, TouchTerrain, and DEM processing were used to generate the models. Chris, who is behind TouchTerrain, was very receptive to my feedback through the process and this would not be possible without his support.