Documentation

A reference for every control, element, and workspace feature in TrailMark3D.

Prefer a walkthrough? The tutorials take you through the same controls step by step, with screenshots of the real panel and the finished print. Browse the tutorials

Getting Started

Upload a GPX

Drop a .gpx file on the home page or the workspace, or click to browse. The route is shown on the 2D map with its distance, elevation gain, highest point and time. A GPX with several tracks keeps each one, so you can color or leave out tracks in Trail Settings. Use the sample trail to try every control without a file of your own.

Search a Place

Type a place name or coordinates (for example 46.68, 7.86) to build a terrain model of anywhere, with no GPX needed. A place has no track, so Trail Settings are hidden and the model is terrain and map features only. Search results come from OpenStreetMap.

Multi-Day Upload

Range: 2 – 7 GPX files (60 on Pro Plus)

Select several GPX files at once and choose what to build. "A model per day" gives one tile per day, each at your full print size and laid out at its real-world position, so you generate, tweak and download days one at a time. "All days on one map" puts the whole trip on one model, with each day kept as its own trail, and you can add tiles around it when it outgrows one. Pro builds up to 7 days and Pro Plus up to 60. Landcover, Roads, satellite colors and the rectangle shape are single-day only for now.

Print a Region

Build a whole country, US state or region in relief, cut to its real border. Open "Print a region" on the home page, or "Region" in the workspace search bar, then point at a region and click it or search for it. Anything wider than one plate is split into the fewest plates that cover it, and you can set the ground per plate, the printed size, and leave out plates or far-off islands before you prepare and generate them. Signed-in users can preview a region; downloading one needs Pro Plus.

Export / Import Settings

Export saves every setting in the panel as a JSON file, and Import loads one back in a later session or on another trail. On a multi-day trip the file can carry each day's settings and layout; parts that do not fit the current job (a different number of days, a shape or tile count your plan does not include) are skipped and a message says which.

Reset to Defaults

Puts every setting back to its default. Most sliders also have their own small reset arrow that restores just that control.

2D Map & Shape

Shape

Default: Square

The outline of your model, chosen from the shape button on the 2D map: Square, Circle, Hexagon, Octagon, or Rectangle (Pro), a free-form width × height you drag or type, each side up to your plan's span limit. Once a multi-day trip or a set of tiles is laid out, the shape is fixed, because it decides where every tile sits.

Center Marker & Center Presets

Drag the center handle to move the model over a different part of the trail. The center picker on the map jumps straight to the trail's start, finish, highest point or centroid. The terrain fetched is centered on this point.

Area Size (Padding)

Drag the side handle to grow or shrink the area around your trail, or type a width in kilometres. More area includes more surrounding terrain; less crops tighter to the route. If the area is wider than your plan allows, a warning offers to reduce it or split it into tiles.

Rotation

Drag the rotate handle to turn the shape. Useful for lining the model up with a ridge or fitting a long trail into a tighter crop.

Extension Tiles

Click the outlined cells around your shape to add neighbouring terrain tiles, and click a tile's remove button to take it away. Every tile is measured from the main tile, so they all print at the same size and fit together edge to edge. A route wider than your span limit is offered as tiles automatically. Pro previews extra tiles with a watermark; Pro Plus generates and downloads them.

Layer Picker

Switch the background map: Light and Dark (OpenFreeMap) or Satellite (Copernicus Sentinel-2, from zoom level 8, about 10 m per pixel). The map shows no country or state borders.

Print Colors Legend

A compact count of the print colors your model uses, in the corner of the 2D map. Open it to change the terrain, trail, water, road and landcover colors, picked from Bambu Lab filament colors, and to see how close you are to your plan's color budget.

Water Preview Overlay

With Water Bodies on, the water inside your shape is drawn on the map before you generate. Kept polygons are green, ones you excluded are red, and ones under the minimum size are gray. With Pro you can click a polygon to leave it out or bring it back.

Print Detail

Grid Resolution

How many elevation samples per axis build the terrain surface. Anonymous visitors get Basic (70 × 70) and free accounts Standard (250 × 250). On Pro the grid is set automatically from your print size and nozzle, up to 625 × 625, so the mesh carries as much detail as your printer can lay down; a note says when the elevation data itself runs out first. Multi-day trips keep a manual slider from 100 to your plan's maximum: lower it to iterate faster, raise it for the final build.

Nozzle

Default: 0.4 mm

Your printer's nozzle width: 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 or 0.8 mm. It is remembered on this device and used to size the grid, so a finer nozzle gets finer terrain. It does not change the model's size.

Vertical Exaggeration

Range: 1× – 10× · Default: 2.0×

Multiplies the height of the terrain relative to its width. At 1× the model is true to scale; higher values make mountains and valleys more dramatic. It updates the 3D preview in real time without regenerating, and it is also on the compact control card next to a finished model.

Model Size

Range: 20 – 250 mm · Default: 100 mm

The printed width and depth of the model, linked by its shape, so typing one sets the other; the longer of the two runs from 20 to 250 mm, and no further than the bed of the 3D Printer picked above. It scales the relief with the footprint, so the terrain stays in proportion, and it decides how much elevation detail is worth fetching. On tiles and multi-day trips it is the size of each tile or day. Regenerate to apply it; the panel shows the size the model on screen was built at.

Base Height

Range: 0 – 10 mm · Default: 3.0 mm

The thickness of the solid base under the terrain. A thicker base is sturdier and leaves room for water depths and trail slots. Together with Vertical Exaggeration it sets the model's total height.

Map Features

Terrain Mode and City Mode

Terrain Mode / City Mode

Default: Terrain Mode

Terrain Mode is for landscapes: you turn each map feature on as you need it, and buildings are only kept inside large urban areas. City Mode is for towns and cities: buildings and roads are always on, every building is built, and the City features list (built-up blocks, parks, forests, golf courses, beaches) replaces Contour and the full landcover list. When an area reads as built up, the map suggests City Mode. Building and previewing City Mode is free once signed in; downloading it needs Pro.

Color Presets (City Mode)

Ready-made palettes in Bambu Lab PLA Matte filaments, such as Terracotta, Bone & ink, Blueprint, Night, Parkland and Open country. Pick how many filaments you want to load and each preset drops its least important distinction to fit. Click a color band to swap its filament. Save these colors downloads your palette as a file, and Import palette loads one back.

Pad Height (City Mode)

Default: 0.2 mm

How far a city feature such as a park or built-up block is raised above the terrain. It is capped at the road height so streets stay proud of the pads they cross.

Buildings

Extrudes OpenStreetMap buildings onto the terrain. Held to a 10 km wide area, since beyond that a building prints under a millimetre tall. In Terrain Mode only buildings inside large urban areas are kept. Buildings cannot be combined with the puzzle split.

Building Style

Default: City blocks

Individual builds every footprint on its own. City blocks merges the footprints into the block they sit in, bounded by the streets, so a large area still reads as blocks and streets instead of coming out nearly empty.

Height Mode & Fallback Stories

Default: Real heights

Many buildings in OpenStreetMap have no recorded height. "Real heights" keeps every surveyed height and fills in only the missing ones; "Same height" gives every building the same height for an even, diagrammatic skyline. Fallback Stories (0 to 20, 3 m per storey) sets the height used for buildings with no data; 0 keeps the built-in 8 m.

Ground

Follow terrain keeps the real landscape under the buildings. Flat base levels the ground so every building sits on one platform, usually what you want for a city, where relative building heights matter more than hills.

Wall Color / Roof Color

Set the color of building walls and of shaped roofs independently, for the 3D preview and the 3MF export.

Landcover

Colors the terrain surface. Color overlay paints landcover areas (forest, grassland, farmland, rock and more) in their own colors; Configure Landcover Features picks which types print and their colors. Satellite samples real colors from Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery: Extract Colors builds a palette of the number of print colors you choose, snapped to Bambu Lab filaments, and you can click a color on the map preview to change it. Single-day models only for now.

Contour

Tints the terrain by elevation, like a topographic map. Lines draws contour lines in one color, with their own width and color; they are free and do not count toward your print colors. Bands splits the relief into equal elevation slices, each its own print color. Both puts the lines over the bands. Landcover paints on top of the bands, and satellite coloring hides them.

Roads

Adds roads from OpenStreetMap as raised strips that follow the terrain, in one road color. Road types opens the full list (motorways to residential streets, paths, rail), each type on or off. Roads use one of your print colors and are limited to a smaller area than terrain alone, which Pro raises. Single-day models only for now.

Road Width, Height & Min Road Size

Road width multiplies every road's printed width (0.5× to 4×). Road height sets how far roads stand above the terrain (0.15 to 1.2 mm, default 0.4 mm, one nozzle line). Min road size drops roads narrower than a real-world width, in steps that match road classes, so you can keep only the main roads. A non-default width or size previews for free and needs Pro to download.

Paths & Trails, Clear Streets, Path Style

Paths & trails adds footways, cycleways, steps and tracks. Path style prints them Dashed, which tells them apart from streets, or Solid. Clear streets deletes any building that sits on a road (needs Buildings on).

Water Bodies

Default: Off

Adds water inside your shape as its own colored piece. Pick the types with the Seas, Lakes and Rivers cards. Needs a Base Height of at least 0.8 mm. If an area has too much water detail to build, the panel says so and offers to turn Water Bodies off.

Water Color

The color of water surfaces in the 3D preview and the 3MF export.

River Width

Range: 0.5× – 4× · Default: 1× (true to scale)

Scales how thick rivers print, independent of which rivers appear. Rivers are drawn at their real width, which shrinks to hairlines at model scale; raise this to make them boldly visible. A non-default value previews for free and needs Pro to download. Lakes and seas keep their real outline.

Min Water Size

Range: 0 – 100 mm² · Default: 0.5 mm²

Drops water polygons smaller than this area on the printed model, such as tiny ponds or mapping slivers. Raising it above the default is a Pro setting.

Min Water Width

Range: Off – 3 mm · Default: Off

The narrowest printed width kept for rivers, canals and ditches. A long thin channel has plenty of area but can print thinner than your nozzle; this removes it. Seas and coastlines are never affected. Any value above Off previews for free and needs Pro to download.

Sea Floor

Default: Flat

Flat prints the sea as one level water surface. Terraced builds the real seabed as stepped depth bands, like a nautical chart: set the number of Depth bands (2 to 8), the Sea depth (1 to 10 mm), and whether each band gets its own color. The base grows if it needs to so the sea floor fits. Preview is included; downloading a terraced sea needs Pro Plus.

Water depth, fusing & fit

How It Prints (Water)

Default: One piece

One piece fuses the water to the terrain so the whole model prints together, ideal for a single material or a multi-color printer. Separate (Pro) makes the water a drop-in piece with print-fit clearance, set by its Slot Margin (0 to 0.8 mm, default 0.2 mm).

Water Depth

Default: Full depth

Full depth fills the water solid down to the base. The shallow option (Pro) follows the fit above: fused it is a Thin layer, a skin of constant thickness that follows the terrain and uses much less filament; printed separately it is a Shelf, a flat-bottomed piece that sits on a ledge.

Waterline Drop

Range: 0 – 5 mm · Default: Flush (0)

Lowers the water surface below the shoreline, leaving a visible bank wall, like the recessed water in architectural city models.

Water Thickness

Range: 0.2 – 5 mm · Default: 0.6 mm

The exact thickness of a fused Thin layer. Capped by Base Height, since at least 1 mm of base is always kept below the water, so raise Base Height for a thicker skin.

Shelf Height

Range: Auto / 0 – 8 mm · Default: Auto

For a separate Shelf piece, the height of the floor it sits on. Auto gives every water body its own shelf just under its surface, so each piece is as thin as printable. A set height puts every shelf at that one height, which suits water that is all at about the same level.

Trail Settings

Trail Generation

Default: Raised trail

Raised trail prints the route on top of the terrain. Groove only cuts it into the terrain as a recessed channel with no trail piece. No trail builds the terrain alone. Trail Settings only appear for a GPX trail.

Tracks & Trail Color per Track

A GPX with several tracks lists every track, with search, sort (by name, length or climb) and filters. Tap the eye to leave a track out of the model and again to bring it back. With Trail color per track, each track gets its own color in the 3D view and the 3MF; every extra color is one more filament.

Size

Trail Height

Range: 0.5 – 10 mm · Default: 2.0 mm

How far the trail rises above the terrain. A taller trail is easier to see and feel on the print. When the trail is Flush, this becomes Trail Depth, the thickness of the inlay skin.

Trail Width

Range: 0.3 – 5 mm · Default: 1.5 mm

The width of the trail. Wider trails are easier to see and print but can hide fine terrain detail.

How it prints

Trail Fit

Default: Separate

On terrain fuses the trail to the model, in one piece. Flush sinks it level with the surface as a flat inlay. Separate prints the trail as its own piece and carves a slot it press-fits into, so you can print it in another color without a multi-color printer.

Rounded Trail Top

Default: On

Gives the trail a domed cross-section instead of a flat top, for a smoother, more organic look.

Slot

Slot Margin

Range: 0 – 0.8 mm · Default: 0.2 mm

The clearance between a separate trail piece and its slot. Increase it if the fit is too tight on your printer.

Slot Type

Default: Through Hole

Through Hole cuts the slot down to the base, and the trail drops in. Shelf (Pro) leaves a flat floor inside the slot so the trail piece sits at a set height.

Slot Floor Height

Range: 0.2 – 5 mm · Default: 1.0 mm

For a Shelf slot, the height of its floor measured from the bottom of the model.

Puzzle

Split into Puzzle Pieces

Default: Off

Cuts the model into interlocking jigsaw pieces. Each piece is its own object in the 3MF, so your slicer can lay them out. Pieces slide together from above and the curved tabs stop them pulling apart. Needs a sign-in, and cannot be combined with Buildings. On tiles, each tile becomes its own puzzle.

Cut Pattern

Grid cuts square pieces in columns and rows. Rings cuts concentric rings of cells around the center. Circles, hexagons, octagons and rectangles always use Rings; a square can use either.

Columns / Rows / Rings

How many pieces. Up to 6 × 6 or 3 rings on a free account; larger puzzles, up to 28 × 28 or 8 rings, need Pro.

Fit & pattern

Tab Size & Variation

Tab Size (10 to 30 % of a cell) sets how pronounced the tabs are. Variation (0 to 13) sets how much each tab's shape differs, from uniform to hand-drawn. Reroll picks a new random pattern.

Puzzle Piece Clearance

Range: 0 – 1.5 mm · Default: 0.2 mm

The gap between assembled pieces. 0 is an exact fit that may fuse during printing; around 0.3 mm suits most FDM printers.

Print Spacing

Range: 0 – 20 mm · Default: 0 mm

Spreads the pieces apart on the build plate so the slicer can print them with room for a brim and cooling. The 3D preview and the 3MF use the spread layout.

Frame on a Second Plate

Adds a display frame sized to the assembled puzzle, printed on its own bed, with every Frame Builder setting available.

Related tutorials: 3D printed map puzzle, MakerWorld 3D map generator

3D Viewer

Camera Controls

Left-drag to tumble freely, right-drag to pan, scroll or middle-drag to zoom. On touch screens, drag to rotate, use two fingers to pan and pinch to zoom.

View Cube

Click a face or corner of the cube to look at the model from that side. The arrows turn the view 45° at a time or tilt it up and down, and the home button resets the view.

Auto-Spin

The model turns slowly when it first loads. Any mouse or touch interaction stops it until the model is reloaded.

Assembled / Single Tile

On a model with tiles or days, Assembled shows every finished tile together in place, and Single tile shows one at a time. Large sets are shown simplified when assembled; open a tile to see it in full detail.

Spread Pieces

On a puzzle, drag the slider to pull the pieces apart so you can check each one. The 3MF download keeps the spread; double-click the slider to put them back.

Create Frame

Opens the Frame Builder with a printable frame sized to this model, or a tray sized to the assembled puzzle. Frames are designed per tile, so switch to Single tile first.

Flyover Video for Reels

Makes a 13-second flyover of your model sized for Reels, TikTok and Shorts, with optional stat counters (distance, climb, high point, or up to 3 of your own) and an end card. The video is made on your device, so keep the tab open until it finishes.

Route Stats & Built Size

The panel shows the route's distance, elevation gain, highest point and time, and under Model Size the width, depth and height the model on screen was built at.

Download & Export

Download 3MF

The main download: one 3MF with every part in its own color, ready for a multi-color printer (Bambu AMS, Prusa XL and others) or for assigning filaments in your slicer. Open in Bambu Studio sends the 3MF straight to Bambu Studio; it may ask you to confirm the source the first time.

More Formats (STL)

The arrow next to the download button lists the STL files: Combined (terrain and trail as one mesh), Terrain and Trail. STL files are single-color meshes for any slicer.

Data Sources & Attribution

The "Where the data came from" pill in the lower-right corner of the 3D view lists the sources this model used, copies a ready-made attribution text, and downloads attribution notes to keep with your files. The download menu reminds you that free models are for personal use; selling a model needs Pro.

Tiles & full trail

Per-Day / Per-Tile Downloads

On multi-day trips and tiled models, the menu lists every day or tile with its own 3MF and STL buttons, so you can download and print each piece separately. Tiles not built yet are marked.

All 3MF (ZIP)

Downloads every built tile as one ZIP with a 3MF per tile. It waits until every tile is built; until then the main button offers the tile in view.

Generate Full Trail

On a tiled model whose trail crosses several tiles, builds the whole route as one continuous trail piece at the same scale, so you can print it unbroken and drop it into the tiles' slots. The tiles are not changed.

Generation & Plans

Generation Pipeline

Clicking "Generate 3D Model" runs the build in steps: parse route, fetch terrain, then water, roads, vegetation and buildings as needed, build the 3D mesh, and save. When builders are busy you see your place in the queue. Settings are locked while a model builds, and Cancel Generation stops it.

Live Controls

Vertical Exaggeration updates the 3D preview instantly, without regenerating, and downloads use its latest value. It carries a "Live" badge.

Regenerate-Triggering Controls

Every other setting needs a new build. When a setting changes, the section shows a "Regenerate needed" badge and the viewer a "Settings changed" pill; click Generate to update the model.

Plans, Previews & Print Colors

Free accounts get a few generations a day and a budget of print colors. For a new account's first 3 days, a feature trial unlocks the Pro options and unlimited print colors; the daily limit, area and resolution stay the free plan's. After the 3-day feature trial, Pro options and extra colors can still be previewed: such a build is preview-only, made at reduced resolution, does not count toward your daily limit, and needs an upgrade to download. Features marked Pro or Pro Plus in this reference work the same way.

My Models

Signed-in users find every model in My Models, grouped by status, where they can reopen, edit, download or remove it. Your plan keeps a set number of saved models; saving past that removes the oldest, and the panel warns you first.