About

My roommate wanted to make a gift for his parents, so I suggested to make one. His parents hand-built a small cabin along the Columbia River which now is very sentimental to his family. He though making a topographic map of the area around his family’s cabin would be a perfect gift.

To make the topographic map, we first used a combination of online tools to convert the land topography to a 3d mesh. The 3d mesh was imported into Fusion 360 and was converted to a 3d model since CAM cannot be made from a mesh. Once converted, I determined the toolpaths necessary to CNC the topographic map out of solid wood. I then used the large CAMaster CNC router in the Invention Studio to cut the features for the topographic map. This cut ended up taking about 3 hours with my roommate and I taking shifts, watching the CNC cut out the map, but the wait was completely worth it.

We then cut out the topographic map using a bansaw since we did not have an endmill long enough to cut through the thick piece of wood. After sanding, we finished the topographic map with an oil-based stain to bring out the color of the wood.