How do you turn a region of Tethys into a 3D print?
Open the generator, switch it to Tethys, pick Odysseus, Ithaca Chasma, a crater or another place from the list or drag the selection box over any other region, and choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament in a circle, square or hexagon. OrbitStudio builds the model from Tethys's measured heights and shows it in 3D before you download anything.
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 model takes a Plus or Merchant plan, or one credit from a pass.
What makes Tethys worth printing?
Two giant scars. Tethys is an icy moon of Saturn about 1,060 kilometers across. Odysseus is an impact crater about 400 kilometers wide, nearly two-fifths of Tethys itself, and Ithaca Chasma is a valley about 100 kilometers wide and 3 to 5 kilometers deep that runs some 2,000 kilometers, roughly from pole to pole (NASA). Odysseus is old and broad, its floor pushed back up over time, so it prints as a wide, shallow bowl: about 6 millimeters of relief on a model 200 millimeters wide, at true scale. Penelope, a younger crater of about 200 kilometers, keeps its steep walls and holds about 8 millimeters on a 280 kilometer box.
Where do the heights come from?
From a shape model of Tethys that J. R. Weirich, R. W. Gaskell, E. E. Palmer and D. L. Domingue Lorin of the Planetary Science Institute built from NASA Cassini images by stereophotoclinometry, archived in NASA's Planetary Data System in 2025 (doi:10.26033/hpv0-eh61). Its record places it under Creative Commons Zero. The model has a resolution of about 1.5 kilometers; OrbitStudio grids it at about 770 meters. Every height is measured above Tethys's own ellipsoid, 538.4 by 528.3 by 526.3 kilometers, so a wide box does not print as a ramp. Heights run from about 9.8 kilometers below that ellipsoid to about 5.5 kilometers above it.
How small a region can be printed?
About 220 kilometers across. The model's 1.5 kilometer resolution means craters smaller than about 30 kilometers print as soft dimples, so the selection box stops there. That is room for Penelope with its rim, for a stretch of Ithaca Chasma, or for a group of craters; Odysseus wants a box of about 550 kilometers to fit whole. Models start at true scale, 1x. Very wide regions are gentle at true scale, and the app suggests 1.5 to 2x for those.
What do the map and the globe show?
They open on Cassini's images of Tethys: the imaging team's global map in NASA's Planetary Data System, made with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It is not a photograph but a patchwork of many images under different suns, and it can sit several kilometers off the shape model in places. The menu also offers our own relief of the shape model, in color and in gray: the heights themselves, which is what prints.
Can Tethys be printed in more than one color?
No, a Tethys model prints in one filament of your choice. Multicolor terrain takes its colors from images of the ground, and Tethys's image map does not line up closely enough with its shape model: measured, it sits about 6 kilometers off it in the median and much more in places, which would put colors beside the craters they belong to. The frame, the frame text, the puzzle cover and the wall mount work as they do on every other world.
Which Tethys places are built in?
Forty-eight, in three groups: Odysseus, Ithaca Chasma and Penelope; forty-three craters; and Ogygia Chasma and Scheria Montes. All are names the IAU has approved, most from Homer's Odyssey. Places that sit across the 180° line or too near a pole are left out, Melanthius and Nausicaa among them. Each one below opens the generator on Tethys, already flown to it.
Odysseus and Ithaca
| Ithaca Chasma | 14° S, 6.1° W · Open in the generator |
|---|---|
| Odysseus Crater | 32.82° N, 128.89° W · Open in the generator |
| Penelope Crater | 10.83° S, 110.78° E · Open in the generator |
Craters
| Achilles Crater | 0.6° N, 35.62° E · Open in the generator |
|---|---|
| Aietes Crater | 41.44° S, 6.23° W · Open in the generator |
| Ajax Crater | 28.41° S, 78° E · Open in the generator |
| Alcinous Crater | 30.31° N, 147.39° E · Open in the generator |
| Amphinomus Crater | 14.87° S, 128.7° W · Open in the generator |
| Anticleia Crater | 51.31° N, 32.37° W · Open in the generator |
| Antinous Crater | 59.89° S, 73.85° E · Open in the generator |
| Arete Crater | 4.67° S, 61° E · Open in the generator |
| Circe Crater | 12.6° S, 54.66° W · Open in the generator |
| Demodocus Crater | 59.37° S, 18.21° W · Open in the generator |
| Diomedes Crater | 38.12° N, 70.58° E · Open in the generator |
| Dolius Crater | 30.15° S, 149.67° E · Open in the generator |
| Elpenor Crater | 53.43° N, 96.31° E · Open in the generator |
| Euanthes Crater | 7.86° N, 121.09° E · Open in the generator |
| Eumaeus Crater | 23.1° N, 51.12° W · Open in the generator |
| Eurycleia Crater | 52.54° N, 113.5° E · Open in the generator |
| Eurylochus Crater | 5.07° S, 27.68° W · Open in the generator |
| Eurymachus Crater | 35.65° S, 65° W · Open in the generator |
| Halius Crater | 44.4° N, 4.96° W · Open in the generator |
| Hermione Crater | 38.4° S, 148.69° W · Open in the generator |
| Icarius Crater | 5.89° S, 54.15° E · Open in the generator |
| Irus Crater | 27° S, 115.19° E · Open in the generator |
| Laertes Crater | 46.36° S, 67.46° W · Open in the generator |
| Leocritus Crater | 21.53° N, 118.66° W · Open in the generator |
| Leucothea Crater | 4.26° S, 123.84° W · Open in the generator |
| Maron Crater | 2.52° N, 119.33° W · Open in the generator |
| Medon Crater | 25.5° N, 143.31° W · Open in the generator |
| Mentor Crater | 0.25° N, 44.16° W · Open in the generator |
| Naubolos Crater | 72.19° S, 54.82° E · Open in the generator |
| Neleus Crater | 19.38° S, 25.72° W · Open in the generator |
| Nestor Crater | 54° S, 64.81° W · Open in the generator |
| Oenops Crater | 28.13° N, 93.44° W · Open in the generator |
| Ormenus Crater | 20.39° S, 43.85° W · Open in the generator |
| Periboea Crater | 8° N, 34.86° W · Open in the generator |
| Phemius Crater | 11.32° N, 73.78° E · Open in the generator |
| Polycaste Crater | 1.38° N, 86.41° W · Open in the generator |
| Polyphemus Crater | 3.48° S, 77.02° E · Open in the generator |
| Poseidon Crater | 55.71° S, 101.3° W · Open in the generator |
| Salmoneus Crater | 1.77° S, 24.82° E · Open in the generator |
| Teiresias Crater | 60.39° N, 0.83° W · Open in the generator |
| Telemachus Crater | 54° N, 20.62° E · Open in the generator |
| Telemus Crater | 34.53° S, 3.11° E · Open in the generator |
| Theoclymenus Crater | 14.43° S, 154.37° E · Open in the generator |
Chasma and Montes
| Ogygia Chasma | 56° N, 95.2° W · Open in the generator |
|---|---|
| Scheria Montes | 30° N, 131° W · Open in the generator |
What is OrbitStudio?
OrbitStudio turns real space data into 3D-printable models. You pick a region on a globe or a flat map, choose a jigsaw puzzle or a solid ornament, and get ready-to-print files with the parts already separated and colored. No CAD, no mesh repair.
Trying it is free and needs no account: pick a region, generate it and turn it around in 3D. Downloading the model takes a Plus or Merchant plan, or one credit from a pass. The generator covers the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Pluto, Vesta, Ceres, Mimas, Enceladus and Charon 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.