Mount Rainier Round Stepped Relief Wall Disc

A 200 mm round wall disc of Mount Rainier as ten terraced colour bands, built from public-domain USGS elevation data, with a swap-in title plate.

Date: 2026-11-10 Category: Art and Decor Modeling difficulty: Intermediate Estimated print: ~14 h total · ~210 g PLA (estimate) Suggested price: $45–$85 printed · $9 digital file (estimate) Status: Concept

Description

A round disc, 200 mm across and 22 mm deep, with a 7 mm rim at the top. Inside the rim sits a 166 mm circle of terrain, cut into ten steps that are each 1.6 mm taller than the last. Rainier is a single cone, so the steps read as rough concentric rings with the glacier-cut valleys biting into them. Filament changes at three fixed heights turn the steps into a colour gradient: forest green at the base, sage, warm stone grey, then white on the summit cap.

The bottom of the disc holds a 70 × 12 mm title plate that presses into a pocket. The same disc carries any place name, a date, or coordinates. Two keyhole slots on the back hang it on wall screws.

The terrain is not drawn or traced. It comes from the USGS 3D Elevation Program, and the modeling guide gives the window, scale and banding so anyone can rebuild it from the data. This is a mood-board cover image; the geometry comes from the dataset, not the picture.

Why it sells

This is an art piece chosen on taste, so there is little sales evidence to cite, and I found none for multicolour 3D-printed maps specifically. What I did find is that raised-relief wall maps are an established product: Muir Way sells them as a best-sellers collection, though by vacuum-forming printed sheets rather than by 3D printing. On the data side, USGS says its map data is free and in the public domain and asks for a credit line, so a sold print is clean on licence if the credit stays. The gap is a round, stepped, colour-banded disc that you can reprint for any peak by swapping the DEM window and the plate.

Who buys it

Climbers and hikers who have stood on or near the mountain, people buying them a gift, and Pacific Northwest households who like terrain as wall decor. Sold as a finished print through Etsy or a craft market, or as a file for owners of a multicolour printer. It sits next to the square Grand Canyon tile in this library, so a pair of shapes (square and round) makes a small set.

Design overview

• 200 mm round disc, 22 mm deep, with a 166 mm terrain window offset 10 mm up, leaving a 7 mm top rim and a 27 mm base for the plate.
• Ten bands at 1.6 mm per step over a 5 mm floor. Scale 1 mm = 200 m, so the window covers 33.2 km.
• Colour changes at z = 8.2, 13.0 and 17.8 mm, all on 0.2 mm layer boundaries, so a plain pause-and-swap works.
• Press-fit title plate, 70 × 12 mm, 0.15 mm clearance per side. This is what makes the disc reusable.
• Keyhole slots on the back, so it hangs flat.
• Elevation source: USGS 3DEP 1/3 arc-second DEM (about 10 m spacing) from The National Map. Required credit: "Data available from U.S. Geological Survey, National Geospatial Program".

Dimensions

Parts list

Hardware and non-printed parts

2 × wall screws, pan head, 4 mm shank, 8 mm head. The heads sit in the Ø9 keyhole recesses.

Fits and tolerances

• Title plate in pocket: press fit, 0.15 mm per side, the middle of the 0.1–0.15 mm press range. The plate is only 3 mm deep in the pocket, so friction does the holding; add a dot of glue for shipping.
• Keyholes: 4.5 mm slot for a 4 mm shank, 0.25 mm per side, sliding.

Modeling guide

Origin: back face, lowest-left corner of the 200 × 200 bounding square (disc centre at 100, 100). +X right, +Y up the wall, +Z out toward the viewer.

Relief disc

1. Sketch on XY: circle diameter 200 centred at (100, 100). Extrude +Z 22.
2. On the top face (z = 22) sketch a circle diameter 166 centred at (100, 110). Cut down 17 to z = 5.
3. On the top face sketch a rectangle X 64.85 to 135.15, Y 10 to 22.3. Cut down 3 to z = 19.
4. Get the DEM: download the USGS 3DEP 1/3 arc-second tiles around 46.853 N, 121.760 W from The National Map. The window crosses the 47 N tile edge, so you may need two tiles.
5. Resample to a 0.2 mm grid over the 166 mm circle (1 mm = 200 m). Apply one 3 × 3 median filter. Quantise to 10 bands: band = min(9, floor(10 × (elevation − min) ÷ (max − min))), with min and max taken inside the circle.
6. Band b has top height z = 5 + 1.6 × (b + 1). Extrude each band's region from z = 5 to that height. Simplify outlines at 0.4 mm tolerance and delete islands smaller than 1.2 × 1.2 mm.
7. Check vertical exaggeration: 3200 ÷ (max − min elevation in metres). Expect 0.8 to 1.1. Over 2.0 the steps get too tall and thin.
8. On the back face cut two keyholes at (70, 150) and (130, 150): a Ø9 recess 3.5 deep, then a 4.5 wide slot 8 long toward +Y, 3.5 deep.
9. Fillet the outer top rim edge 0.8 and chamfer the bottom outer edge 0.4.

Title plate (origin at the centre of its bottom face)

1. Sketch a 70 × 12 rectangle centred on the origin. Extrude 3.
2. Emboss the title in a bold sans-serif, cap height 6, 1.0 high, centred. Default text: MOUNT RAINIER. Keep strokes at least 1.2 wide.
3. Chamfer the bottom perimeter edge 0.3.

Print settings

Assembly

1. Press the plate into the bottom pocket.
2. Set two screws 60 mm apart, level.
3. Slide the disc down onto the screws through the keyholes.

Variants and upsells

• Other peaks with the same recipe: Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, the Teton Range, Half Dome. Swap the window and the plate.
• Square 200 mm version (see the Grand Canyon tile in this library) for a mixed wall.
• Personalised plate with coordinates or a summit date.
• A 4-colour vs 6-colour edition: six bands of colour at 1.6 mm steps.

Selling and distribution

Etsy and craft markets suit the finished print; MakerWorld and Printables suit the file, with the DEM recipe as the selling point. Price from material (about 210 g PLA), machine time (about 14 h) and a margin, which is how the $45–$85 estimate was set. Sell the print and the file. Licence the file under a commercial-use licence if you charge for it. Keep the USGS credit line in the listing and on the back of the disc.

Keywords: Mount Rainier art, topographic wall art, relief map, 3D printed map, mountain decor, Washington gift, climber gift, layered map, stepped relief, hiking gift.

Risks and IP notes

• Thin step walls can break in handling. Keep the 1.2 mm island minimum and 0.4 mm simplification.
• Filament changes by hand are a time cost. Mitigation: three changes only, at fixed heights.
• Many map sellers exist. Mitigation: the round format and the swap-in plate.
• USGS data is public domain, but the credit line is requested. Mitigation: print it on the back and in the listing.
• National Park names are fine as place names; avoid park-service logos or arrowhead shapes.

Resource links

• USGS 3D Elevation Program — the publisher of the elevation data
• 3DEP products and services — lists the DEM resolutions and how to download them
• Costs or restrictions on National Map data — public domain status and the requested credit line
• How to cite National Map data — citation wording
• 3DEP 1/3 arc-second DEM catalog entry — the exact dataset to build from
• Muir Way best sellers — an established raised-relief wall map seller (vacuum-formed, not 3D printed)