Laser-Cut Topological Map of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Carnegie Mellon 15-294 Rapid
Prototyping Final Project Write Up
(Under the Ideate Program)
Instructor: Dave Touretzky
Created by:
Paul Chao
Carnegie Mellon 17
BS Materials Science and Engineering
March 4, 2016

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 document will detail the creation process for the Final Project building
process. I will detail it in a form of a guide and plan to upload all files I used
freely available to the public for use as public knowledge, have fun people!
Share the fun on to your friends! RIP Aaron Swartz.
Summary:
Time: 30 Hours total
Cost: $100 for supplies
Equipment: 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.

(Figure 1) Screen capture of the guide online that inspired the project. Shout
out to scottshambaugh for the inspiration!
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

(Figure 2) Website I used to get data from.

Elevation Data: http://www.pasda.psu.edu/

(Figure 3) Another website I used to get data from.

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/#).

(Figure 4) Screen capture of the Pittsburgh elevation data from online

imported into QGIS before contouring.
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.

(Figure 5) Screen capture of the data in Rhino including all of the contours,
roads and outline all cleaned up.

(Figure 6) Screen capture of the data with a google map screenshot as the
background BitMap.

(Figure 7) Screen capture of an example of something I would send to the

laser cutter. I used Draftsight to open the DXF file. Normally exporting from
Rhino as DXF was fine to be used by the laser cutter.
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.

(Figure 7) The laser cutter I used in the Ideate labs

(Figure 8) I bought 3 pieces of 4x8 Maple plwood at Lowes for around $25
each The details are on the top right of the figure. I also got blue
watercolor, wood glue and Shellac. I used the clamps in the Ideate Labs. The
estimated total cost for supplies was $100.

(Figure 9) I tested the watercolor mix on a piece of scrap wood I messed up

on. I also mixed the watercolor using a empty plastic bottle cut in half.

(Figure 10) I tested the engraving, (left line) is just normal engraving
settings, (right line) I had covered with masking tape before it was engraved
and there were no smoke marks. It came out to be very clean engraving
which I used on the back to write a message.

(Figure 11) I also used this test piece to figure out the laser power and
speeds to use. I concluded that the cut should be made at SPD 50 and PWR
10 and the roads are a low power cut using SPD 12 and PWR 25.

(Figure 12) I have most of the pieces cut and was putting it together using
my computer.

(Figure 13) Here is the map as it is being glued together. I clamped what I
could and then used a book and buckets of water to weight down pieces to it
would glue properly. I was told by the man in the University Art Store that the
wood glue is super strong if compressed together during drying and probably
stronger that screws.

(Figure 14) Last step! The Ideate Labs had closed for Spring Break so I went
down to my basement and sprayed it, the basement looks dingy because this
is a really old house, over 100yrs old and as the university. I gave it a coat of
Shellac, I used a spray on bottle that was a few bucks from the Art Store and
Voila! Project done!