3D printed city maps
Turn a city centre, a neighbourhood or the street you grew up on into a printable model with buildings at their real heights, plus roads, railways, water and trees, all from OpenStreetMap.
Free, no account, no watermark. The model is built in your browser and never uploaded.
What goes on a city model
- Buildings raised from their footprints. Where OpenStreetMap records a height or a number of floors, that is used; elsewhere a sensible default height.
- Roads widened by type, so a motorway reads wider than a residential street, with a width control to make them bolder or finer.
- Railways, rivers, lakes and the sea, with water cut into the ground or laid on top.
- Trees and land cover: parks, woodland and built-up ground as their own colour parts.
- A frame with the name raised on it, which turns a fragment of a city into a finished object.
Every layer is a separate part in the 3MF export, so roads, water and buildings can each print in their own filament.
How big an area to choose
The single most common mistake is framing the whole city. At 150 mm across, the area you choose decides whether individual buildings survive:
| Area across | One millimetre of print is | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 km | 7–13 m | A neighbourhood. Individual buildings stand clearly apart. |
| 3–4 km | 20–27 m | A recognisable centre. Streets read; small houses merge. |
| 5–8 km | 33–53 m | The street pattern reads, single buildings do not. |
| 10 km and up | 67 m or more | Leave buildings off; roads, water and land cover carry it. |
Limits worth knowing
- Buildings, roads and railways load for areas up to 500 km², and up to 40,000 buildings are drawn. Past that you are told, and a smaller area gets them all.
- Building and road data come from OpenStreetMap volunteers. Large cities are mapped thoroughly; smaller towns can be patchy, and missing buildings simply do not appear.
- The map data comes from public servers that are sometimes busy. If buildings show "Server busy", wait a minute and try again.
Printing it
Buildings are the only part of a map with sharp vertical walls, so they want finer settings than terrain: 0.12 to 0.16 mm layers, full part cooling, and slower outer walls. Like terrain, a city model needs no supports. The longer guide to city prints is here.
Questions
Are the building heights accurate?
Where OpenStreetMap records a height or number of floors, yes, and central areas of large cities are usually well covered. Where it does not, buildings get a default height, so treat small-town skylines as approximate.
Can I print a city without the hills?
Yes. Set the terrain height low, or leave it on automatic: most cities are flat enough that the buildings carry the model.
Can I mark my own house?
Yes. Import a point or an outline from a GPX, KML or GeoJSON file and it is raised on the model as a pin or a shape.
Can I print it in several colours?
Yes. Download the 3MF and each layer, buildings, roads, water and the rest, arrives as its own part ready for a multicolour printer.