Laser-Cut Topological Map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Carnegie Mellon 15-294 Rapid PrototypingFinal Project SummaryInstructor: Dave TouretzkyCreated by:
Paul Chao
Carnegie Mellon ‘17
BS Materials Science and Engineering
Link: I made it on Reddit!
Lead with the money shot! Looking from down below, you can really see the definition from the layered contours, I am really proud of this and I think it looks fantastic!
This blog will detail the creation process for the Final Project building process. I uploaded all files I used freely available to the public for use as public knowledge, please don't sell this for money to people, I put in the work and I want to share it free with everyone, have fun people! Share the fun on to your friends!
DIY: Please click here to follow link for the files
Summary:
Time: 30 Hours total
Cost: $100 for supplies
Equipment: Computer, Web access, Rhino, Laser Cutter
Introduction:
I took this class hoping to learn to use laser cutters and 3d printers since I was inspired by a post I stumbled across over winter break 2015. Found under /DIY someone had created a laser-cut topo map of Portland ME and had guide published on imgur by scottshambaugh (http://imgur.com/gallery/vuyDa). It inspired me to do a laser-cut topographic map of Pittsburgh, PA.Project Report: Please click here to follow link to pdf
Details:
So the first step was to download the elevation and road data for Pittsburgh, PA. I found the data I needed after googling around. Listed below were two helpful sites I used.City Data: http://pittsburghpa.gov/dcp/gis/gis-data-new
Elevation Data: http://www.pasda.psu.edu
I ended up downloading the Pittsburgh data in two parts, east and west. I then followed the instruction on the imgur guide and loaded the data into a free software QGIS – A free and open source geographic Information System (http://www.qgis.org/en/site/#).
I continued to follow the steps in the guide and hit the ‘Add Raster Layer’ button and navigated to my DEM file and clicked ‘ok’. I then clicked ‘Raster’ > ‘Extraction’ > ‘Contour…’ from the top title bar. I selected a path for the output file and gave it a name. I specified the contour lines to be every 30ft and it spit out the contours! I imported that file and the city roads data into Rhino (I used a student trial version) because I had been using it for another project and was familiar with how it worked.
The next step was to pretty everything up. That included separating all of the contours into their respective layers, scaling everything to size, trimming out the extra contour data, and road data so everything fit into the city limits. I also decided to cut the bridges out as part of the first contour so I also had to draw in some lines. I also used a screenshot of google maps to get the contour, river and roads to line up correctly. In Rhino, I added the screen capture as a Bitmap and moved and scaled it to size. I think I did a pretty good job and was relatively close the what is in real life.
The next part was to export all of the files as dxf for Laser Cutting. I used the laser cutters in the Ideate labs under Hunt. I also had to purchase supplies from Home Depot. I bought 3 pieces of 4x8 plywood. I had to have them cut into 4x4 pieces and furthermore trimmed it to 45 in in width to fit on the laser cutting bed. I also purchased some wood glue, watercolor, paint brush and Shellac from the Carnegie Mellon University Art Store. Prior to cutting all of the pieces out, I used a test piece to adjust the laser settings. In the end I determined that speed 10, power 50 was best to cut my specific type of wood and speed 12 power 25 was very good to make the roads. I used the ‘cut’ setting because some of the roads were not closed and could not be engraved from rastering. Instead, I used a low power cut to have the roads appear and it worked out very well. I also engraved a short message on the back of the map and I plan to gift it to a friend to hang up on their wall in their home because they are locals.
I continued to follow the steps in the guide and hit the ‘Add Raster Layer’ button and navigated to my DEM file and clicked ‘ok’. I then clicked ‘Raster’ > ‘Extraction’ > ‘Contour…’ from the top title bar. I selected a path for the output file and gave it a name. I specified the contour lines to be every 30ft and it spit out the contours! I imported that file and the city roads data into Rhino (I used a student trial version) because I had been using it for another project and was familiar with how it worked.
The next step was to pretty everything up. That included separating all of the contours into their respective layers, scaling everything to size, trimming out the extra contour data, and road data so everything fit into the city limits. I also decided to cut the bridges out as part of the first contour so I also had to draw in some lines. I also used a screenshot of google maps to get the contour, river and roads to line up correctly. In Rhino, I added the screen capture as a Bitmap and moved and scaled it to size. I think I did a pretty good job and was relatively close the what is in real life.
The next part was to export all of the files as dxf for Laser Cutting. I used the laser cutters in the Ideate labs under Hunt. I also had to purchase supplies from Home Depot. I bought 3 pieces of 4x8 plywood. I had to have them cut into 4x4 pieces and furthermore trimmed it to 45 in in width to fit on the laser cutting bed. I also purchased some wood glue, watercolor, paint brush and Shellac from the Carnegie Mellon University Art Store. Prior to cutting all of the pieces out, I used a test piece to adjust the laser settings. In the end I determined that speed 10, power 50 was best to cut my specific type of wood and speed 12 power 25 was very good to make the roads. I used the ‘cut’ setting because some of the roads were not closed and could not be engraved from rastering. Instead, I used a low power cut to have the roads appear and it worked out very well. I also engraved a short message on the back of the map and I plan to gift it to a friend to hang up on their wall in their home because they are locals.