3D print Vesta

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

Open the generator, switch it to Vesta, pick a landmark 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 the elevation data and shows it in 3D before you download anything, with the terrain and the frame already separated and colored. Vesta models start at true scale, and Vesta is steep: at 1x a region already rises 15 to 45 millimeters 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 Vesta as they do on the other worlds; on a steep region the cover sits high on the peaks, and the generator says so.

How much of Vesta can be printed?

All of it. Vesta is one of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt, and NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited it from July 2011 to September 2012. JPL's Dawn Gravity Science Team built a shape model of the whole of Vesta from about 16,500 of its images, on a 50-meter grid.

Dawn arrived in Vesta's northern winter, so the far north was never well lit. Where Dawn saw no usable image, the team filled the 50-meter model with a smooth ellipsoid; there OrbitStudio uses the team's coarser global model instead, about 370 meters, which is real shape. That is about 2% of Vesta, all north of about 63° N. Those regions can be selected, print softer, and the generator says so.

Why is Vesta not round?

Because it is too small for its own gravity to pull it into a ball. The ellipsoid that fits it best measures about 569 by 554 by 453 kilometers, and its south pole was flattened by two giant impacts, Rheasilvia and the older Veneneia beneath it. OrbitStudio measures every region on that ellipsoid where the region is, so a model is as wide as the ground it shows, and heights are measured from the ellipsoid rather than from a sphere, so a wide region does not print as a ramp.

Measured that way, Vesta's heights run from 19.9 kilometers below the ellipsoid to 21.6 kilometers above it, and both extremes are in Rheasilvia: the lowest point on its floor, the highest on its rim. The 3D globe in the app is drawn as a sphere; the models are not.

Which regions of Vesta print best?

Almost any, at true scale. The smallest region on Vesta is about 50 kilometers across, and at that size a crater wall already stands tens of millimeters tall. The Snowman, three craters framed together at about 160 kilometers, holds about 25 millimeters of relief on a model 200 millimeters across; Marcia alone, at about 100 kilometers, about 26; the central peak of Rheasilvia about 42.

Vesta models carry no credit condition: the elevation data is NASA mission data, released under Creative Commons Zero, and JPL asks that no one claims or implies that NASA, JPL or Caltech endorses a product, as section 08 of the terms explains.

Is the map a photograph of Vesta?

No, though its colors are Vesta's own. The map shows true color from the color mosaics the German Aerospace Center (DLR) made from Dawn's camera and archived in NASA's Planetary Data System, combined from its red, green and blue filters, and shaded with OrbitStudio's own relief so the ground reads as ground. Where Dawn took no color, in the dark north and on shadowed crater floors, it shows Vesta's average tone. The globe and two of the map's styles show shaded maps of the heights instead. None of it is printed: a model is made from the heights alone.

Are there landing sites on Vesta?

No. Dawn orbited Vesta for 14 months and never landed; in September 2012 it left for Ceres, the next stop of its mission, so there are no landing sites to mark and Vesta models carry no markers.

Which Vesta landmarks are built in?

Fifty-two, in five groups: the Snowman and its three craters, five great basins, plains and cliffs, nine troughs, ridges and crater chains, four hills and highlands, and thirty craters. All are names the IAU has approved; most of Vesta's craters are named after the Vestal Virgins of ancient Rome. Divalia Fossae runs across the 180° line, so it has two entries, one on each side. Each one below opens the generator on Vesta, already flown to it.

The Snowman

Great basins

Troughs and ridges

Hills and highlands

Craters

What is OrbitStudio?

OrbitStudio turns real elevation data into 3D-printable models. You pick a region of Vesta 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 the shape model NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory made from Dawn's images, on a 50-meter grid.

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, Venus, Ceres, Pluto 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.