3D print Pluto

How do you turn a region of Pluto into an STL?

Open the generator, switch it to Pluto, pick a landmark from the list or drag the selection box over any other measured region, and choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament in a circle, square or hexagon. OrbitStudio builds the model from the elevation data and shows it in 3D before you download anything, with the terrain and the frame already separated and colored. Pluto models start at 2x vertical exaggeration: at true scale a region a few hundred kilometers across has only a few millimeters of relief on a model 200 mm wide.

Generating a model and turning it around in 3D is free and needs no account. A free account adds puzzle slicing, custom frame text and a library of three models. Downloading the STL and pre-colored 3MF files takes a Plus or Merchant plan, or one credit from a pass. The frame text, the puzzle cover and the wall mount work on Pluto as they do on the other worlds.

How much of Pluto can be printed?

Only the part New Horizons measured. The spacecraft flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, about 7,800 kilometers above the surface, and saw one side of it up close. The New Horizons team built elevation models of about 42% of Pluto from its stereo images; counted on the published file, the measured ground is about 45% of the surface. The rest was seen only from far away or lay in darkness, so it has no heights, and the generator will not build a selection that touches it. On the map that ground is shaded, and on the globe it is dark.

The measured part is not equally sharp. North of 60° N the heights carry streaks, the far east and west of the measured side were seen from farther away and come out smooth, and south of about 30° S the ground was in darkness and was mapped only in the faint light scattered by Pluto's haze, so it comes out lumpy. Those areas can still be printed, softer, and the generator says so when a quarter or more of a selection lies in one. The sharpest ground is the heart and the mountains and plains around it.

How much relief does Pluto have?

Several kilometers, more than its size suggests. The surface of the ice in Sputnik Planitia lies about 2 kilometers below Pluto's mean radius, and the ring of blocky mountains along its western edge rises above it: Schenk et al. measured the highest peak of Tenzing Montes at 6.2 kilometers from base to crest. Wright Mons, a mountain with a deep pit in its top, stands up to 4.7 kilometers high, and Piccard Mons, in the haze-lit south, has up to 11 kilometers of relief from the floor of its central pit to its crest, the most measured on Pluto. In the published file the heights run from 4,101 meters below to 6,491 meters above the 1,188.3-kilometer sphere they are measured from, and both of those extremes lie in the noisier haze-lit south.

Which regions of Pluto print best?

The mountains around the heart, at 2x. The file is posted at 300 meters per pixel, but the stereo images resolve relief about a kilometer across, so below about 150 kilometers the pixels print as small blocks; a region on Pluto is therefore at least about 166 kilometers across, which Wright Mons, 165 kilometers wide, just fills. Framed at about 370 kilometers, Tenzing Montes comes out with about 4.5 mm of relief at 1x and 9 mm at 2x on a model 200 mm across, its blocky peaks beside the smooth ice of the heart. Hillary, al-Idrisi and Zheng He Montes print the same way.

Big regions are flatter for their size. Sputnik Planitia, framed at about 1,040 kilometers, has about 1.5 mm of relief at 1x: a smooth floor inside a rough rim, which reads at 2x to 3x. Tartarus Dorsa prints as raised plateaus, but the stereo data does not resolve its blades. Piccard Mons and the far south print noisy, because they were seen only in haze light. Pluto models carry no credit condition: the elevation data is NASA mission data, which NASA releases under Creative Commons Zero, as section 08 of the terms explains.

Is the map a photograph of Pluto?

Not one photograph. The map and the globe show the USGS's global mosaic, assembled from nearly all of the sharpest images New Horizons took with its two cameras, LORRI and MVIC, in shades of gray. Parts of it were lit only by haze, and the side New Horizons never saw up close is blurred or missing. On both, the ground that was never measured is shaded dark, because it cannot be printed. The map can also show shaded maps of the heights.

Has anything landed on Pluto?

No. New Horizons flew past and kept going, so there are no landing sites to mark, and Pluto models carry no markers.

Which Pluto landmarks are built in?

Forty-three, in five groups: six in the heart; eleven mountains and ice volcanoes; twelve craters; seven rifts and ridges, and seven plains and lands. Every name is one the IAU has approved, and each box lies on measured ground; where a feature runs off the measured side, its box frames the measured part. Belton Regio, the long dark region along the equator known informally as Cthulhu, was given its official name in 2023. Each one below opens the generator on Pluto, already flown to it.

The heart

Mountains and ice volcanoes

Craters

Rifts and ridges

Plains and lands

What is OrbitStudio?

OrbitStudio turns real elevation data into 3D-printable models. You pick a region of Pluto on a globe or a flat map, choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament, and get ready-to-print files with terrain and borders already separated and colored. No CAD, no mesh repair. The heights come from New Horizons' stereo topography, posted at 300 meters per pixel.

Trying it is free and needs no account: pick a region, generate it and turn it around in 3D. Downloading the model — STL files and pre-colored 3MF files for Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer — takes a Plus or Merchant plan, or one credit from a pass. The generator covers the Moon, Mars, Mercury and Venus too.

The night sky, too

OrbitStudio Sky, the night-sky tool, turns the sky over any place, on any date from 1900 to 2100, into a 3D-printable star map. Its STL is free.