3D print Kumamoto Castle
A free, printable model of Kumamoto Castle's tiered keeps on their curved stone bases, with the green hilltop grounds, paths and buildings around them in Kumamoto, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About Kumamoto Castle
Kumamoto Castle (熊本城) is a Japanese castle on a hilltop in the Chūō-ku ward of Kumamoto, within Kumamoto Prefecture. The castle was large and heavily fortified, and it is counted among Japan's three premier castles, with Himeji Castle and Matsumoto Castle. The site goes back to 1467, when Ideta Hidenobu established fortifications there. Kanokogi Chikakazu expanded them in 1496, and Katō Kiyomasa received a transfer to the castle in 1588, when it was still in an early form.
Kiyomasa greatly enlarged the castle between 1601 and 1607, turning it into a complex that included 49 turrets, 29 smaller gates and 18 turret gates, and the Honmaru Goten Palace was completed in 1610. The complex spans roughly 1.6 kilometers (0.99 mi) east to west by 1.2 kilometers (0.75 mi) north to south, and the castle keep is 30.3 meters (99 ft) tall. Its curved stone walls, called musha-gaeshi, and its wooden overhangs were meant to keep attackers out.
In 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion, the castle came under siege, and the keep and other parts burned; it held out against 19th-century weapons without falling. The keep is a reconstruction in concrete, built in 1960, and several ancillary wooden buildings survive from the original castle. Thirteen structures in the complex are designated Important Cultural Property. Restoration work between 1998 and 2008 saw most of the 17th-century structures rebuilt.
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 | 12 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 15 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 20 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Stacked roofs and gables
- Each keep is a stack of overhanging roofs and gables, with tiny ridge ornaments at the top. Layers of 0.12 to 0.16 mm keep the eaves crisp, and printing slowly helps the small tips.
- Flared stone bases
- A curved, flaring base slopes out beneath each keep. A larger print size keeps the curve smooth, and Full detail keeps every modeled feature.
- One piece with the ground
- Kumamoto Castle 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. Kumamoto Castle 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
Kumamoto Castle 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 Kumamoto Castle 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. Kumamoto Castle grows with the print: about 12 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.
