In one sentence
OrbitStudio turns real elevation data of the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Vesta, Ceres, Pluto and Charon into 3D-printable jigsaw puzzles and ornaments, and the night sky over any place and date into a 3D-printable star map, all in the browser.
OrbitStudio is a browser tool for people with a 3D printer. Pick any region on a map of the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the giant asteroid Vesta, the dwarf planet Ceres, or the sides of Pluto and its moon Charon that New Horizons measured, and it builds a print-ready model from the elevation data of NASA missions: a snap-together jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament, round, square or hexagonal, with the terrain and the frame already separated for multicolor printing. Its second tool, OrbitStudio Sky, turns the sky over any place on Earth, at any moment from 1900 to 2100, into a printable star map plate. No CAD and no mesh repair are involved. OrbitStudio is made by SimplySolid3D, an independent 3D-printing studio in the Netherlands.
Key facts
- Name: OrbitStudio, one word. Not "Orbit Studio", which belongs to unrelated design agencies. The star-map tool is OrbitStudio Sky (called StellarMesh until 25 September 2026).
- Website: orbitstudio3d.com, and orbitstudio3d.com/sky for the star maps.
- Maker: SimplySolid3D, a sole proprietorship in the Netherlands, run by Mike.
- Worlds: the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Vesta, Ceres, Pluto and Charon, plus the night sky.
- What you get: STL files and pre-colored 3MF files, ready for Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer. Terrain heights are measured, not sculpted or generated.
- Price: trying a model in the browser is free, and so is the STL of a star map. Terrain downloads and star-map 3MF files use credits; see pricing.
- Funding: launched through a crowdfunding campaign on MakerWorld, funded more than 800%.
The data behind every world
Every model is built from published elevation data, and every source is one we are allowed to turn into a product. The details, resolutions and licences are on each world's page.
- The Moon: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
- Mars: the laser altimeter (MOLA) of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, up to 463 m per pixel.
- Mercury: the USGS global elevation model from NASA's MESSENGER mission, with sharper polar maps blended in.
- Venus: NASA Magellan's radar altimetry, about 4.6 km per pixel.
- Pluto and Charon: the New Horizons team's stereo elevation models from the 2015 flyby, covering the sides it measured (about 45% of Pluto, 44% of Charon).
- Vesta and Ceres: the shape models NASA JPL's Dawn team made from tens of thousands of Dawn images.
- The night sky: the Bright Star Catalogue (Hoffleit & Warren, 1991). Constellation figures: IAU and Sky & Telescope, licensed CC BY 4.0, modified.
OrbitStudio is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, JPL, Caltech or USGS. Please do not describe it as a NASA product. The map imagery shown in the app is radar, laser or colorized data for most worlds; please do not call it a photograph.
Story angles
- How flat is Venus? Maat Mons is 9 km high and 400 km wide, so a 200 mm Venus model holds under 4 mm of relief at true scale, which is why Venus models start at 4x height.
- Only part of Pluto exists in 3D. New Horizons measured about 45% of Pluto and only about 20% of Charon sharply; OrbitStudio lets you print exactly that measured part.
- Choosing data you may legally sell. Why some of the best planetary data cannot go into a product, and how each world's source was checked before it shipped.
- One maker, eight worlds. A one-person studio in the Netherlands building print-ready terrain from planetary science data.
Print photos
Photos of real prints made with OrbitStudio. Click a caption for the full file. Credit: OrbitStudio / SimplySolid3D.
Share images rendered from the generator: OrbitStudio, Mercury, Venus, Vesta, Ceres, Pluto, Charon and OrbitStudio Sky. These are renders, not photos. Need a higher resolution or a particular place? Ask, and we make it.
Logos
OrbitStudio logo (PNG, 512 px) · OrbitStudio mark (SVG). Please keep the name as one word, OrbitStudio, when you write it next to the logo.
Contact
For interviews, review files, custom renders of a place you are writing about, or a print sample, email Mike at [email protected]. Mike answers in English and Dutch.