Model Topographic Maps

Hello,
I am interested in modelling an area of ~20,000 Sq Km which has a max/min elevation of around sea level to ~1000m.
I'm hoping to print this to size of around A4 sheet of paper.
I have no prior knowledge of 3D Printing but have done limited amount of modelling before using Solidworks/AutoCad. I am hoping to pick up some new skills during lockdown. Once my model is completed I will be sending this to a printing company.

I was following this How To Blog but can see some issues before I begin.

1. Generate 3D Model Terrain using Terrain2STL or TouchTerrain
2. Then complete using TinkerCad

Alternatively on Udemy I found a course called '3D Topographical Earth in Blender 2.8'
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-earth/

Is Blender another good alternative? Or should i be looking at using something like Autocad for this project?

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maley63

Hello,
I am interested in modelling an area of ~20,000 Sq Km which has a max/min elevation of around sea level to ~1000m.
I'm hoping to print this to size of around A4 sheet of paper.
I have no prior knowledge of 3D Printing but have done limited amount of modelling before using Solidworks/AutoCad. I am hoping to pick up some new skills during lockdown. Once my model is completed I will be sending this to a printing company.

I was following this How To Blog but can see some issues before I begin.

1. Generate 3D Model Terrain using Terrain2STL or TouchTerrain
2. Then complete using TinkerCad

Alternatively on Udemy I found a course called '3D Topographical Earth in Blender 2.8'
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-earth/

Is Blender another good alternative? Or should i be looking at using something like Autocad for this project?

Thanks

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If you can get the terrain data in 3d contour format you can use 3ds max TERRAIN feature to generate a terrain model from them. You can then export to an STL for printing. We have done this for lots of our proposal sites