I’ve had a little idea of making something on the CNC and was wondering if it’s possible to covert contours (OS map type thing) into a 3D model? A friend is moving away and wanted to make a 3D model of the Malvern’s as a leaving present..
Any ideas if it’s do-able?

A friend is moving away and wanted to make a 3D model of the Malvern’s as a leaving present..

price in selling me a copy if you pull it off!

(BTW glued layers of ply would look cool!)

not contours but you can use DEM data/DTM data etc whether you can get it free for the Malverns is another matter

NASA released contour data for the planet as open source files. The trick is going to be taking that data and converting it into a form thats useable on whatever cnc machine you’re intending to use.

some info to get you started

If it were me i would probably bodge it by tracing the contours in illustrator or similar and go from there but if you’re technically minded the NASA data looks like you could get a very good result.

As per Klunk, you need to find a digital terrain model.

Couple of search terms that provide potentially usable returns are:

“digital terrain model malverns”

“open source digital terrain model uk”

(seems like STW doesn’t like Google URLs so you’ll have to cut and paste)

You’ll probably need CAD skills to turn a list of X,Y,Z coordinates into a surface/file that can be fed to the CNC device – I can do topo survey data into civil designer software but manufacturing isn’t my thing.

(Edit to add: wanders off to OSM and NASA to see if it’s possible to extract data for use in calculating areas of watersheds)

You can get free terrain data here:

OS GB Contour Data

BUT – there are anomalies in the dataset, so some contours just abruptly stop in the middle of nowhere which can confuse some 3D software. You need to check the area you’re wanting to work with carefully. Having said that it’s still a hell of a lot of very good data.

It’s definitely do-able…

http://www.3dwoodmaps.com/

I made a 3D model of Bristol and the surrounding hills using contour data and built it up in layers for the Festival of Nature. The model could then be flooded to show the impact of rising sea levels and abnormally high tides. Worked pretty well and didn’t take too long. The pieces made quite a tricky jigsaw. This was green plastic but could easily be a range of materials

You can get contour data from OS as above but it does need quite a bit of extra work to make into something useful. It is possible to extract some vectors from Open Street Map too. It is generally better quality for manipulation than OS but I don’t know if they have contours.

Couldn’t you export topographic detail from Google Earth into something like Sketchup?

Nick – that is very cool indeed.

Sorry for the hijack/OT but this seems like a good thread to ask about this thread I started a while back

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/online-maps-with-elevations-shown-in-heatmap-style

Anyone aware of this being available anywhere now (1 year on)?

is this any use ? it’s pretty coarse (generated from the free OS 5Om data)

height is not to scale 🙂

to scale with todays 12 oclock lighting

Thanks for all the replies chaps 🙂
I’ve found a company, literally 1/2 mile from my house, that do 3D mapping so will see what they come up with.
Klunk, something like that would be ideal but I have now idea how to do that 😳

what format do you need the model in ?

The geography department at Dyson Perrins School used to have a model of the Malverns, extrapolated vertical scale as the relief is underwhelming otherwise. It was made of carboard and paper mache and was an awesome project for some bored 5th years.

I’d definitely use the OS Terrain 50 over any other of the free datasets for the UK.

Sorry for the hijack/OT but this seems like a good thread to ask about this thread I started a while back

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/online-maps-with-elevations-shown-in-heatmap-style

Anyone aware of this being available anywhere now (1 year on)?

You can map this yourself offline using the OS Terrain 50 DEM data in raster format, and the free GIS software QGIS or a free trial of ArcGIS perhaps, I think you might be able to pull the data into ArcGIS for free online actually. You’ll need to work out how to do it of course but it isn’t difficult, the heatmap effect you are looking for is just a case of choosing a nice colour gradient to use to display the height values.

I don’t know that much about web mapping but I think it is unlikely a free public online resource would allow you to create your own colour gradients because of the way the data is rendered and then transmitted to you. Here is one you can’t modify but gives you the idea anyway

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=43fd5c64b3f741a880efe6589f834f87

similar http://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/ukso/home.html?layer=OSDTM

The geography department at Dyson Perrins School used to have a model of the Malverns, extrapolated vertical scale as the relief is underwhelming otherwise. It was made of carboard and paper mache and was an awesome project for some bored 5th years.

Over do the height scale and it’s more mordor than the malverns!

what format do you need the model in ?

Something that would work with Mastercam ideally but can work with IGES, STEP, DXF, DWG etc? The 2nd one of the 1st 2 looks perfect

jim – that Soil map viewer is just what I was after – thanks 🙂

YGM

If you need to convert anything to CAD files I’m sitting with Civil 3D open in front of me.

How much money do you want to spend?
Many years ago did some work for these people:
3d maps

The EA now provide LIDAR (DTM data) free of charge. You would need some form of GIS software to view it – QGIS is free open source GIS software.

Could you 3D print the model from something like 3D CAD?

Could you 3D print the model from something like 3D CAD?

Can’t 3D print but can machine from solid

I’ve downloaded (I think) the Lidar data from EA for Malvern and QGIS but how on earth do I get the EA info into QGIS? 😕

that 1m and 2m lidar dtm data is just insane would take for ever to stitch together the malverns and would be about a billion(for the 2m) faces 🙂

represents 1/100th of SO74 😯

the western side of north hill in 2 meter it’s just nuts !

Wowzers! That is mental detail. Probably a bit overkill for what I’m after 😯

I’m thinking, if it’s doable, to make the model about 13″ long. Area of interest is about 6.5m long so would give a nice 2″ – 1m scale.

that 1m and 2m lidar dtm data is just insane would take for ever to stitch together the malverns and would be about a billion(for the 2m) faces

Yep, have a look at this blog on how to reduce the size of the data to something more manageable:
England Releases National LiDAR DEM with Insane (!) Vertical Resolution

@nemisis

A heat map or similar is fairly easy to achieve with the OS terrain 50 data in QGIS

These were done that way

Wow – that lidar data could actually be used to map the paths!

in 1m It picks ups the borrow on golf greens 😯 (they also do a 50 cm and 25 cm versions)

Where did you get the data? The page (http://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey) appears to be pretty dead to me. I have no idea what I want to do with this data (the EA appears to have shed loads available to download) but I’m geeking out a little 😀

chvck – https://www.geomatics-group.co.uk/geocms/

Ta, appears to eventually link to the same dead page as above though!

click on the composite lidar option and it takes you to a map where you can search locations and data

direct link to the download map though its very slow

Clever Klunk! I’ve now got a lovely 3D model to play with

All nice and high tech!

I remember (many) years ago in either cubs or scouts i did my map-making badge. As part of the test i had to make a relief map of a local hill by tracing the contours off an OS map and cutting out corresponding layers in a thin polystyrene sheet.

The sheets were then glued together to create the 3D model, covered in papier-mache (sp?) and then poster painted. It was actually very effective and worked very well!

The Royal pub at Tockholes has a huge relief map of the local area stuck to one of its walls that is always a source of interest for anyone visiting the pub.

The link doesn’t seem to like Chrome or visa versa 🙁

stevied – I emailed a cabinet maker friend the other day, he finally got back to me, and recommended Severn Plywood in Stonehouse if you wanted a place to get some good quality stuff from nearish to the Malverns.

http://www.timberdepots.com/panels/index.php