1 Topic by owenransen

  • owenransen
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Milano, Italy
  • Registered: 2012-10-29
  • Posts: 87

Topic: Printing Planets

This is a bit of promotion for PhotoToMesh, but here is how you can make a sphere with elevation of a planet:

http://www.ransen.com/PhotoToMesh/3D-Mo … inters.htm

The trick is to find D.E.M. (Digital Elevation Map) files as gray scale images of planets, moons and asteroids.

Author of  PhotoToMesh, for making bas-reliefs and
lithophanes from your photos and images
http://www.ransen.com/PhotoToMesh

owenransen's Website

2 Reply by pirvan (edited by pirvan 2015-02-15 16:01:38)

  • pirvan
  • pirvan
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: San Francisco
  • Registered: 2013-03-27
  • Posts: 1,797

Re: Printing Planets

The subject does say "printing" planets.  So I thought I'd do a little math:

So the earth is 12742Km, or 12742000m in diameter.  The highest point on earth is Mount Everest, at 8848m above sea level.  So if you were to print the earth as a 127mm diameter sphere (5"), your Mt. Everest would be 0.08mm in height.

To put it in perspective, if you were to put a daub of paint on that spot it would probably be taller than the actual mountain.

To print or, 3D print, that is the question...
SD3 printer w/too many mods,  Printrbot Simple Maker Ed.,  FormLabs Form 1+
AnyCubic Photon, Shining 3D EinScan-S & Atlas 3D scanners...
...and too much time on my hands.

3 Reply by owenransen

  • owenransen
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Milano, Italy
  • Registered: 2012-10-29
  • Posts: 87

Re: Printing Planets

pirvan wrote:

So if you were to print the earth as a 127mm diameter sphere (5"), your Mt. Everest would be 0.08mm in height.

With Mars the tallest mountain, Olympus Mons, is 22km high, and the calculation at the bottom of the web page shows that it would be 0.33mm high on a 100mm sphere. Not even two layers of my 0.2mm layer print.

So even though Mars has a smaller diameter than the Earth, and a taller highest mountain, I exagerated the elevation by more than 300%. But at least I could see the features...!

Author of  PhotoToMesh, for making bas-reliefs and
lithophanes from your photos and images
http://www.ransen.com/PhotoToMesh

owenransen's Website