TopoTrail

What is TopoTrail?

TopoTrail is a free browser tool that turns the GPX track of a hike, ride or run into a small 3D terrain tile with the route raised on top. You drop one or more .gpx files onto the page, the site's server builds the landscape around them from 30 m ASTER elevation data, and a slowly turning 3D preview shows the result before you download anything.

The settings are short but cover what matters for a print. You pick a hexagon, square, octagon or circle base, set its size and thickness, and choose how much margin the trail keeps from the edge. A height scale slider exaggerates the hills, trail width and height are adjustable, and you can use the elevation stored in the GPX file instead of the map data. Seas and lakes are on by default, rivers and OpenStreetMap buildings can be switched on, and a tree line altitude sets where the land color turns to rock color. Several GPX files can share one map.

The download is a ZIP of OBJ files: one terrain mesh with water, land and rock stored as vertex colors, one file per trail, and a buildings file when those are on. It suits hikers, cyclists and runners who want a keepsake of one specific route.

What you can make

• Hiking, cycling and running trail maps
• Hexagon, square, octagon and circle terrain tiles
• Maps with several routes on one base
• Terrain with lakes, rivers and OpenStreetMap buildings

How to use TopoTrail

1. Open the generator and drop in one or more .gpx files
2. Pick a base shape and size, then adjust height scale, trail width and colors
3. Turn on rivers or buildings if you want them and click Update to refresh the preview
4. Click Download, unzip the OBJ files and drag them all into your slicer at once