Boston CityPrint C-12

Finally - you can download and 3D print the terrain and buildings for any part of Boston - or all of it! These 1km x 1km tiles cover the entire city, and not a single building is missing.

First, use the map at the BPDA 3D Smart Model site (link below) to find your tile, then head to our Collection of tiles (link below) and look for the code ("J-9" for example). Finally, just download and print! We recommend white PLA, 0.2mm layer heights, 4 top and 2 bottom layers, and a little retraction to prevent stringing between buildings. Or, if you'd like a set of printed and finished tiles, please contact us for pricing.

The geometry is in mm, so if you print it as-is, you will get a 100x100mm (4"x4") tile at 1:10000 scale. At this scale, all of Boston would be 6 feet high and 7.5 feet wide. If you print it 200% size, the model will be 1:5000 scale and each tile will measure 200x200mm (8"x8"). If you printed every tile, the resulting map would be 12.5 feet high and 15 feet wide! In fact, this is being done by the CityPrint project, and you can see their progress at the Boston Society for Architecture Space at 290 Congress St.

All models come with four cylindrical holes at the bottom, these will perfectly accept 6mm diameter, 1mm thick disc magnets when the piece is printed original size. We recommend gluing two or four Neodymium magnets into those spaces - the magnets cost around 20 cents each from a variety of online retailers. Two will be enough to stick to a refrigerator, four provides a nice, strong grip. Scuff the top (glued side) of the magnet with 100 grit sandpaper for better adhesion. Obviously, if you print the piece at 1:5000 scale, you will need to use 12mm diameter by 2mm thick disc magnets.

While the BPDA site already has 3D models of all of the terrain and building geometry in a variety of formats, none of those are ready to 3D print. Those data contains gaps, holes and overlaps that need to be cleaned up. We did all that work so you don't have to. Just download and print any tile you want at home, or contact us for pricing.

MiniCty offers remarkably-detailed, professionally 3D printed cityscapes for dozens of US and world cities, using data far more detailed than you'll see in these tiles. Check out our web site (link below) to see our work.

This project would not have happened without the freely-available data from the Boston Planning & Development Agency (provided without warranty) and support from Artists For Humanity. The work to prepare and post these tiles was done by Suleiman Hussein and MiniCty founder Mark Stock.

BPDA 3D Smart Model site
Thingiverse Collection of all Boston Tiles
CityPrint project
Boston Planning & Development Agency
Artists For Humanity
MiniCty
MiniCty on Etsy