3D print Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
A free, printable model of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, a tall tapering tower with a railed gallery, and the open green ground and small buildings around it, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
Cape Hatteras Light, a lighthouse in Buxton, North Carolina, sits on Hatteras Island, part of the Outer Banks. A first lighthouse was established here in 1802, and the present tower was completed in 1870. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore includes it. At 210 feet from base to tip, it is described as the tallest lighthouse in the United States, and its diagonal black and white paint scheme is highly visible, which makes it easy to recognize.
The lighthouse stands on the Outer Banks, a chain of barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and the coastal sounds and inlets. Offshore lie the Diamond Shoals, near where the warm Gulf Stream meets the colder Labrador Current and breeds powerful storms and swells. The many ships that ran aground on the shifting sandbars led to the area being nicknamed “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” Congress appropriated $80,000 for a new beacon in 1868, and the finished tower cost $167,000. At 61 meters (200 ft) above ground, it was the world's tallest brick lighthouse tower.
From 1870 on, the sea slowly crept toward the tower, and by 1935 the surf had reached the site. The light moved to a steel skeleton tower farther inland, and the brick tower passed to the National Park Service. Sand later built up again, and the light returned to the brick tower on January 23, 1950. The lighthouse was physically relocated once, in 1999, because of coastal erosion. Reaching the light means climbing 268 steps, and the construction order called for 1,250,000 bricks.
How it prints
Make this print opens the generator on a 600 m square around the landmark. Buildings print at close to true scale, so the landmark grows with the print size.
| Print size | Landmark height | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 16 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 20 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 26 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Railed gallery and thin finial
- A railed gallery rings the lantern room, and a thin rod tops the roof. Print friendly adapts these fine parts to the print scale; Full detail keeps them on larger prints or with a fine nozzle.
- A tall tapering shaft
- The shaft is tall and narrow, so print slowly with good cooling. A larger print size keeps the small window slots and the eight-sided base crisp.
- One piece with the ground
- Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is joined to the ground in the exported file, and the four-side check found no floating parts, so nothing needs gluing.
- Pick the detail for your nozzle
- In the Buildings settings, set Landmark detail to Print friendly to adapt thin parts and small details to the print scale. Full detail keeps every modeled feature, for larger prints or a finer nozzle.
- Colors
- Buildings, roads, water and ground arrive as separate filament slots in the 3MF. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse takes the building color.
- File format
- You get a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer. Any of them can save it as STL if you need one.
About this model
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is one of more than 2,300 landmark models in Mini Skyline. They are made with AI, and each one is checked from four sides in its real surroundings before release. Everything around it is built from OpenStreetMap and Overture map data. If you would rather print the shape from map data, turn off Landmark models in the Buildings settings.
Common questions
Is there a Cape Hatteras Lighthouse STL I can download?
Mini Skyline builds the file for you in your browser and exports 3MF, which every major slicer opens. If you need an STL, open the 3MF in your slicer and export it from there.
How big can I print it?
Any print size from 40 mm across. Cape Hatteras Lighthouse grows with the print: about 16 mm tall on the default 160 mm print. For a model larger than your printer bed, Project Mode splits the area into tiles.
Is it free?
Yes. Generation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing behind a paywall.
