TouchTerrain: A Web App to Easily Make 3D-Printable Terrain Models

Abstract:

Communicating the 3D nature of terrain is fundamental for many geosciences, yet difficult to archive with 2D contour maps. Using 3D printed terrain models can help to reduce this cognitive burden. TouchTerrain (touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu), launched in 2017 and currently at version 2.5, allows non-experts to use a simple web-mapping interface to produce 3D-printable models of the terrain of any area on Earth, including the ocean floor. Several online Earth Engine DEM data sets are available. Users can pan/zoom to an area of interest on a Google style map, can visualize the terrain as a transparent hillshade overlay and can adjust its viewing parameters (transparency, sun direction, sun angle, and gamma). Numerous 3D print options are provided to support the user’s specific 3D printer model, including the physical 3D model size, whether to tile the model into sub-tiles, its base thickness and its vertical exaggeration. For verification, an in-browser 3D visualization is shown prior to downloading the generated 3D model. Expert settings include setting a specific geographic projection and ignoring areas below sea-level. TouchTerrain can also be run as a standalone Python program (and within a jupyter notebook) on a local computer where, in addition to the online DEM sources, local geo-tiff DEM files (e.g. LiDAR terrain) can be processed. TouchTerrain is a collaborative open source project, for details see github.com/ChHarding/TouchTerrain_for_CAGEO/. Future capabilities will include the ability to drape GPS/GPX tracks over 3D models and specify a (non-rectilinear) polygon as the area of interest.