3D print Lake Baikal down to its bed
Lake Baikal with the water taken away: its bed from ETOPO 2022, shaded darker where it is deeper, and the land around it in relief. Open it in the generator, change the size or colors, and export a slicer-ready 3MF.
1,642 m of water, 10 mm on your shelf
The print covers 466 by 526 km. On a 160 mm print the deepest point sits 10 mm below the shore.
| Deepest point | Scale | |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 10 mm | 1:3,290,000 |
| 200 mm | 12 mm | 1:2,630,000 |
| 256 mm | 16 mm | 1:2,050,000 |
- Real depths
The bed comes from ETOPO 2022, NOAA’s global relief model, about 450 m apart. Water depth: Sea floor drains the water away and prints the bed in its place.
- 20 times deeper than life
At true scale the deepest point would sit 0.5 mm below the water line on a 160 mm print, too little to see. The print opens with the Elevation multiplier at 4 and the Sea floor depth scale at 5, so the bed is 20 times deeper than life and the land 4 times taller.
- Shades of depth
The bed prints in four shades of the water color, lighter in the shallows and darker in the deeps, each its own filament. Change the number of shades on the Water tab.
About Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is a rift lake in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia, and the deepest lake in the world: its bed lies 1,642 m (5,387 ft) below the surface. It is also the oldest lake on Earth, 25 to 30 million years old, and among the clearest.
It covers 31,722 km² (12,248 sq mi), slightly more than Belgium, but its depth makes it the largest freshwater lake by volume: about 23,600 km³, 22–23% of the world’s fresh surface water and more than all of the Great Lakes together. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1996.
Next to the others
Lake Baikal next to the other lakes
Common questions
Is the Lake Baikal depth map free?
Yes. The generator runs in your browser and exports a 3MF file you can open in any common slicer. There is no account or payment.
Are the depths real?
Yes. The bed is read from ETOPO 2022, NOAA’s global relief model, about 450 m apart, when the model is made. It is not estimated from the land around the lake.
Is the lake printed at its true depth?
No. It opens 20 times deeper than life, about 10 mm at the deepest point on a 160 mm print, because at true scale the bed would be only 0.5 mm deep. Lower the Elevation multiplier or the Sea floor depth scale for a flatter model.
Can I get an STL instead of a 3MF?
The generator exports 3MF, which keeps each color as its own part. Any slicer can open it and save an STL if you need one.
