3D print the Sun Bowl
A free, printable model of the Sun Bowl's horseshoe of stepped stands, set among hills with the roads and buildings around it in El Paso, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About the Sun Bowl
The Sun Bowl is an open-air stadium for football in the Southwestern United States, at UTEP (short for University of Texas at El Paso). The UTEP Miners, who play in the Mountain West Conference, call it home, as does the college football bowl game that shares its name, and the stadium is named for that game. Texas Western beat North Texas State there on September 21, 1963, and Larry Durham of the Miners ran 54 yards for a touchdown on the opening play. Its nominal seating capacity is 51,500.
El Paso County built the stadium, on land the university had donated, for the school and for the Sun Bowl game, after the city realized the game could not grow its audience or its list of invited teams without a bigger stadium. It sits in a natural bowl next to Kidd Field, where both had played before, and originally sat 30,000, with only sideline grandstands. Its elevation is 1,190 m (3,910 feet) above sea level, and the field runs nearly north–south. The press box dates from 1969, and north end zone stands and a larger east side brought the capacity to 52,000 in 1982.
The game itself dates back to January 1936, and it moved into the new stadium in December 1963, with every game played in El Paso. The stadium has hosted several concerts since the 1990s, including The Rolling Stones, U2 and Pink Floyd. A $15 million renovation announced on April 13, 2018, added luxury boxes in a new press facility, renovated the concourses and added premium seating on the west side, and was finished before the 2021 season.
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 | 25 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 32 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 41 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Slim floodlight masts
- Floodlight masts rise from the corners of the stands on thin poles. Printing slowly and letting layers cool helps these tall, thin parts, and Print friendly adapts them to the print scale.
- Stepped rows and slim columns
- Many narrow seating rows step up the horseshoe, and slim columns line the outer wall. Layers of 0.12 to 0.16 mm keep them distinct, and a larger print size keeps more of them.
- One piece with the ground
- The Sun Bowl 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. The Sun Bowl 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
The Sun Bowl 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 Sun Bowl 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. The Sun Bowl grows with the print: about 25 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.
