Crater Lake Stepped Relief Wall Map

A framed multicolour contour relief of Crater Lake, Oregon, where the lake floor, shoreline and rim each get their own colour, built from public USGS data and not from a picture.

Date: 2026-11-07 Category: Art and Decor Modeling difficulty: Intermediate Estimated print: ~13 h total · ~265 g PLA (estimate; tile ~7 h and ~150 g, frame ~6 h and ~115 g) Suggested price: $45–$65 printed · $12 digital file (estimate) Status: Concept

Description

Crater Lake Stepped Relief Wall Map is a square plaque, 200 mm wide, that shows the caldera and the lake it holds as ten flat contour bands, each 1.2 mm tall and standing for 120 m of elevation. The lake floor is part of the relief. Two navy bands and three sky-blue bands reach down to the 1280 m lake bottom, a forest-green ring begins at the shoreline, and tan and white bands climb the rim.

The tile presses into a charcoal frame with a 25.8 mm title band along the bottom, where the place name is raised in white. Two hidden keyholes on the back hang it on screws. The 5 mm the tile stands above the rim lets the stepped edges catch side light.

The shape is not traced from a picture. The recipe in the Modeling guide builds the tile from the USGS 3DEP elevation model and the USGS multibeam lake survey, and the pixel-to-band rule makes the result repeatable for any other lake or peak.

Why it sells

This is an art idea, chosen on taste rather than sales rankings. The subject is already collected: a commercial raised-relief Crater Lake map is on sale at WhiteClouds, and a multicolour print of the lake is shared on MakerWorld built from the same USGS sources. The MakerWorld listing forbids redistribution, so a free-standing design with its own geometry and recipe fills the gap: a framed, hangable piece with a title band, and a method that repeats for the next map in the series.

Who buys it

Hikers and road-trippers who have been to the park, people who give place-based gifts, and owners of multicolour printers (Bambu Lab with AMS) who want a wall piece. Sold on Etsy, at craft markets, and in park-town gift shops that accept local makers.

Design overview

• Ten 1.2 mm contour bands at a 120 m interval, with the lake floor included, so the depth of the lake shows as colour.
• Five colours only (navy, sky blue, forest green, stone tan, white), one more than a four-slot AMS holds, so pause once for a spool swap or use two units.
• A 0.1 mm per side press fit holds the tile in the frame, and the tile stands 5 mm proud so the steps read in side light.
• Title band with raised, two-line text that can be changed per order.
• Built from named public datasets, so the credit line and licence are clean.
• Differentiator: the lake bathymetry is merged in, so the lake is a bowl, not a flat blue disc.

Dimensions

Parts list

Hardware and non-printed parts

• No. 6 pan-head wood screw, 25 mm (head 7.5 mm dia and no thicker than 3.2 mm, shank 3.8 mm) ×2: driven into the wall 100 mm apart; the frame hangs on the keyholes
• Two-part epoxy or cyanoacrylate, 1 drop ×1: optional, a spot at each pocket corner

Fits and tolerances

• Relief tile into frame pocket: press fit, 0.1 mm per side (pocket 184.2 mm for a 184 mm tile). Tile edges are chamfered 0.4 mm so first-layer flare does not jam.
• Screw into keyhole: the 8 mm entry and 8.4 mm cavity pass a head up to 7.5 mm dia and 3.2 mm thick; the 4.2 mm slot passes a shank up to 3.8 mm. This is a loose hanging fit.

Modeling guide

Origins and axes are given in step 1 of each part. Tile first.

Relief tile:

1. Prepare the heightfield outside CAD: download the USGS 3DEP 1/3 arc-second DEM for a 28 km x 28 km window centred on 42.94 N, 122.11 W. Inside the lake outline, replace values with lake surface elevation (1883 m) minus water depth from the USGS DDS-72 2 m bathymetry grid; read the grid's vertical datum in its metadata page before converting.
2. Resample the merged grid to 184 x 184 pixels (1 pixel = 1 mm = about 152 m of ground). Quantize with n = clamp(floor((elev_m - 1280) / 120) + 1, 1, 10). For each n export the polygon where elev_m >= 1280 + 120 * (n - 1), smoothed with a 1 mm radius, dropping islands smaller than 2 mm across.
3. Sketch on XY, origin at the tile's lower-left corner: square 184 x 184. Extrude 2.0 (base).
4. Extrude polygon 1 by 1.2 from z = 2.0, polygon 2 by 1.2 from z = 3.2, polygon 3 from z = 4.4, and so on, polygon n from z = 2.0 + 1.2 * (n - 1), up to polygon 10 from z = 12.8. Final top at z = 14.0.
5. Chamfer the lower perimeter edge 0.4 so the tile drops into the frame pocket.
6. Split into colour bodies: z 0-4.4 navy (base, bands 1-2), 4.4-8.0 sky blue (bands 3-5), 8.0-10.4 forest green (bands 6-7), 10.4-12.8 stone tan (bands 8-9), 12.8-14.0 white (band 10). Water surface is at 1883 m, so the blue/green boundary at 1880 m matches the shoreline within one pixel.

Frame with title band:

1. Origin: lower-left corner of the back face. +X right, +Y up the wall, +Z out from the wall. Sketch on XY: rectangle 200 x 218, corner radius 3. Extrude 16.
2. Cut the tile pocket from the front face: rectangle 184.2 x 184.2, lower-left corner at X = 7.9, Y = 25.8. Depth 9, leaving a 7 mm floor.
3. Fillet the outer front edge 1.0.
4. Keyholes at (X = 50, Y = 150) and (X = 150, Y = 150), cut from the back face in two layers. Lip layer, z = 0 to 1.6: a circle 8 dia plus a slot 4.2 wide from the circle centre up to Y = 158. Hidden head cavity, z = 1.6 to 5.2: a circle 8.4 dia plus a channel 8.4 wide from the centre up to Y = 158. That leaves a 1.8 mm roof (z = 5.2 to 7).
5. Title text raised 0.6 on the front face of the bottom band (z = 16 to 16.6): line 1 height 9 mm, centred at X = 100, Y = 15.5; line 2 height 4 mm, centred at X = 100, Y = 6. Use a bold sans font and change to white at z = 16.0.

Print settings

Assembly

1. Press the tile into the frame pocket, base down, until it seats.
2. Optional: one drop of glue at each pocket corner.
3. Drive two screws into the wall 100 mm apart, leave 5.0 mm between the wall and the underside of each head, and hang the frame on the keyholes.

Variants and upsells

• Other lakes and peaks with the same recipe: Lake Tahoe, Mount Rainier, Mount Hood. Each is a new tile with the same frame, so the frame file is reused.
• A 120 mm desk version with a 14 km window and 4 bands.
• A personalised title line (coordinates, a trip date).
• A series: each map in the same frame size so a set hangs as a grid.

Selling and distribution

Etsy and local gift shops suit this best, as a printed piece; MakerWorld and Printables suit the file at a commercial licence. Price from material (about 265 g) plus roughly 13 h of printer time plus a margin, which lands near $45 to $65 printed; the file is a $12 estimate. Credit line to include in every listing and on the packaging: "Elevation: U.S. Geological Survey 3D Elevation Program. Lake depth: Gardner and Dartnell (2001), USGS DDS-72." The USGS requests credit for published use; confirm the wording on the USGS acknowledgement page before launch, because that page did not load during this research. Do not imply USGS endorsement.

Keywords: Crater Lake gift, Oregon wall art, topographic map art, 3D printed relief map, contour map decor, national park art, lake bathymetry art, layered map, caldera map, multicolour 3D print, hiking gift, Pacific Northwest decor.

Risks and IP notes

• Thin steps near the rim (under 2 mm wide) can print poorly. Mitigation: the smoothing and 2 mm island filter in step 2, plus 0.4 mm line widths.
• Bathymetry datum mismatch can leave a seam at the shoreline. Mitigation: check the grid's vertical datum in the DDS-72 metadata and test against the 1883 m surface level.
• Market: other sellers already list Crater Lake maps. Mitigation: the frame, the bathymetry and the repeatable series.
• IP: the USGS credit and no-endorsement rule. Mitigation: use the credit line in Selling; avoid the USGS name in the product title.
• The MakerWorld model has restrictive terms. Mitigation: build only from the USGS datasets and do not use that model's geometry.

Resource links

• USGS 3D Elevation Program — Publisher page: all 3DEP products are free and without use restrictions; the DEM to build from
• USGS DDS-72: 2000 multibeam sonar survey of Crater Lake — Publisher page for the 2 m lake-floor bathymetry grid and its metadata
• USGS Publications Warehouse: Gardner and Dartnell (2001), DS 72 — Citation, DOI 10.3133/ds72, USGS-produced data are public domain
• MakerWorld: Crater Lake multicolour print — Comparable multicolour build from the same USGS sources; its listing restricts redistribution, so this design builds its own geometry
• WhiteClouds: Crater Lake National Park 3D raised relief map — A commercial raised-relief version of the same place, showing the subject is already collected