FAQ

Mini Skyline turns a rectangular, circular, or freeform map selection into a 3D-printable relief model. Earth City models can include terrain, water, buildings, roads, paths, rail, parks, trees, and other mapped features when source data is available. You can inspect the model in a 3D preview before exporting it as a 3MF.

You can select a rectangle, circle, or freeform polygon. Rectangle selections can be moved, resized, and rotated, while freeform vertices can be adjusted so the model follows the place you want to print.

Use City tile for detailed Earth models with buildings and mapped features. Use Project Mode to divide a larger Earth City selection into printable pieces at one shared scale. Use Terrain tile for large Earth relief with terrain, water, and surface colors but without City-only features.

A single Earth City model can cover up to 50 km². Project Mode can split an Earth City selection of up to 500 km² into as many as 20 pieces, with no piece larger than 25 km². Terrain tile supports Earth terrain selections up to 25,000 km², although provider and browser limits may make smaller selections more practical.

Moon, Mars, Mercury, and Vesta are currently selectable. Planetary exports are terrain-only, so Earth buildings, roads, water, search, and other city features remain disabled. Venus and Ceres data paths exist but are not currently exposed as selectable production modes.

Generation runs in a Web Worker inside your browser. Mini Skyline fetches the required source data, then builds the preview and downloadable 3MF locally instead of sending the model to a cloud renderer. Generated Project Mode pieces exist only in the active browser session, and Mini Skyline does not store a restorable model artifact. See the Privacy Notice for network requests and telemetry details.

Generation requires a current browser with Web Worker support. Use the latest Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari; Chrome is recommended if Brave or another privacy-focused browser causes geometry or provider problems. Very High and Ultra jobs need substantially more memory and are best kept to smaller areas.

Refresh the page and retry in a current supported browser. If the problem continues, reduce the terrain quality or selection size and close memory-heavy tabs. Check for a maintenance notice, then use Report Issue or the Contact page and include the location, mode, quality, copied generation log, and a screenshot when possible.

The Earth display map uses OpenFreeMap/OpenMapTiles data derived from OpenStreetMap. Current public city geometry primarily uses pinned Overture PMTiles, Earth elevation uses Mapterhorn with Terrarium/Mapzen fallback, and submitted place searches use Photon. Planetary sources vary by body. Review the Attributions page and the exact Source & License Summary included with each export.

Source datasets can be incomplete, delayed, or less detailed than the visible map, and very small features may be filtered to keep the model printable. Production building footprints come from a pinned Overture snapshot, so recent OpenStreetMap edits may not appear immediately. If mapped geometry is clipped or rendered incorrectly, report the location with a preview screenshot.

Yes. In Earth City and Project Mode, use Custom Assets to draw building footprints with chosen story counts or add printable Road, Path, Fence, and Custom linework with exact widths, heights, and colors. Earth terrain painting can replace imported terrain or water classifications with brush strokes or polygons. Availability depends on the selected mode.

Yes. Import one .gpx file at a time from the GPX settings and adjust its printed width, height, and color. A file can contain multiple tracks or routes; importing another file replaces the current GPX set. GPX printing is available in Earth City and Project Mode, not Terrain tile or planetary modes.

Terrain quality controls the sampling grid used to build relief: Low, Medium, High, Very High, or Ultra. Medium is the default; Very High and Ultra are experimental and can exceed browser memory on large areas. The elevation multiplier changes vertical relief after scaling: 1x preserves true model scale, while larger values exaggerate hills and valleys.

You can enable or disable buildings, choose tagged heights only or a uniform fallback for unknown heights, scale building heights, cap very tall buildings, and add optional terrain-following foundations. Missing buildings can be drawn as custom footprints with a chosen number of stories.

Mapped transportation features are separated by type so their visibility, color, and printed size can be adjusted. Explicitly bridge-tagged roads, paths, and railways over water can become raised printable decks instead of being flattened into the water layer. Availability still depends on the source data returned for the selection.

Water can print as its own part, be cut out, or be treated as land, and printed water can follow terrain elevation or be lowered to the base slab. Terrain surface types can be turned on, turned off, or treated as another material. On Earth, terrain painting lets you override imported terrain and water with circular or square brush strokes or polygons.

Yes. Contour settings can add raised minor and index lines that follow source elevations. You can use automatic or manual spacing in meters or feet and adjust line width, height, color, simplification, and index frequency. Contours require elevation relief; printable elevation labels are not released yet.

Yes, for Earth City models. Choose Natural or Rows placement, V2 or lightweight Micro tree assets, eligible terrain types, density, and scale. Placement protects roads, water, buildings, excluded terrain, model boundaries, and tree-to-tree collision limits.

Yes, for square and rectangular selections. Frames can cut into the selected footprint or extend outward, with adjustable width, automatic or custom height, edge profile, colors, and optional raised or set-in printable text on the frame sides.

No. Use One Color to prepare a single-color model, or assign the named parts manually in your slicer. For multicolor printing, the 3MF keeps feature types separated with material and display colors, although exact filament-slot assignment depends on the slicer and version. Mini Skyline does not export photographic textures or continuous full-spectrum color.

A feature can exist in the model but still be too narrow for the selected nozzle, line width, or physical scale. Try the Arachne wall generator, a 0.2 mm nozzle, a larger model, or larger minimum feature widths in Mini Skyline. Inspect the slicer preview; if entire regions are missing or clipping after those adjustments, submit a report.

Mini Skyline exports 3MF only. The format preserves named model parts, material colors, attribution, licensing information, and source provenance that an STL cannot carry. If you convert the model elsewhere, expect to lose some of that structure and retain any required attribution separately.

Yes. Download a workspace file to preserve the selection, settings, GPX routes, and custom content, or recover the latest local autosave. A color preset saves only the palette without changing layer visibility or geometry settings. Generated Project Mode pieces are not cloud-restorable, so download the project ZIP before closing the session.

Check the Source & License Summary for that exact export. Commercial use requires the Mini Skyline credit; Commercial use with source attribution requires that credit plus every supplied upstream credit and condition; No commercial use means the run is not cleared for sale. Keep the license bundle with digital files, and separately clear rights in imported content, protected architecture, artwork, logos, and brands. See Output Use & Attribution for the complete checklist.

Yes. Use Buy a Printed Map to start a personal quote request for a model designed, printed, and delivered by the creator. Include the location, preferred finished size, colors or features, needed date, and shipping destination. Formal automatic quoting and checkout are not available yet.