Moon2STL

What is Moon2STL?

Moon2STL is a free browser tool that turns a square patch of the Moon's surface into a printable STL relief tile. It comes from Thatcher Chamberlin, who also made Terrain2STL, and works the same way: a lunar map with Elevation and Visible layers, a red box you drag over the crater or mare you want, two sliders and a Download button.

The heights come from the USGS ULCN 2005 elevation map, which holds 16 samples per degree, or roughly 1.9 km per sample at the equator. Each sample becomes 1 mm in the model, so the four box sizes of 4 to 10 degrees give tiles of about 6 to 16 cm, with side walls and a flat base 2 mm below the lowest point. At a vertical scale of 1 the heights use that same scale, which keeps most relief to a few millimeters, so the slider (up to 4x) is worth raising.

It suits anyone who wants a quick lunar tile in gray filament without signing up. Detail is limited by the old, coarse data, the page looks dated, and the code on GitHub is public but carries no license file.

What you can make

• Crater relief tiles
• Lunar mare and highland terrain pieces
• Square Moon tiles from about 6 to 16 cm wide

How to use Moon2STL

1. Open Moon2STL and set the Box Size slider first (4, 6, 8 or 10 degrees)
2. Drag the red box over the crater or region you want, using the Elevation or Visible view
3. Raise the Vertical Scale so the relief stands out
4. Press Download, then slice and print the STL