Behind the pieces

A photo of a mountain
never quite does it

You can't feel a ridge in a photo. You can't run your thumb along the line you walked.

That's the whole reason this exists. Every piece I make is somebody's place, a summit they stood on, a hike they finished, their first marathon, printed from real elevation data and turned into something they can hold.

How it started

I've always been interested in what 3D printing can actually do, the sheer range of things you can make with it. But watching fidget toys flood the market, I wanted to make something with a bit more meaning in it.

I'm a photo hoarder. Thousands of them, and I do almost nothing with any of them. I've tried albums, I've tried Polaroids, and none of it ever felt like enough. What I wanted was something you could pick up, a way to turn an experience into more than a line on your phone.

One of the first pieces made

One of my first pieces was Vernal Falls. Forty-six hours on the printer, still my longest print and the most filament I've ever used on one piece.

Partway through I started to wonder whether it was worth it. I could see exactly why nobody in Australia was really doing something similar: it takes too long. The fifth colour had to be loaded and unloaded by hand, which meant standing beside the machine for hours feeding it filament. I kept second-guessing myself, thinking I could print something far easier in a fraction of the time.

Then it came off the plate, and the reaction I got was more than I could have asked for. It wasn't just a model. It was a reminder to my friends that they can do hard things if they put their mind to it, and a reminder of exactly how they felt when they finished that hike.

That's why I do this. To immortalise the feeling someone had at the end of something that mattered to them.

How it's made

Everything happens in a garage in Melbourne. I take the elevation data for your place, work out the crop and the exaggeration so the terrain actually reads, and print it layer by layer. The process can take anywhere from eight hours to two days depending on the size and detail.

Then it comes off the machine and I check it, wrap it and seal it by hand. There's no factory and no batch run. If you order a piece, I'm the person who makes it, and I'm the person who packs it.

What I care about

I won't sell something I'm not happy with.

That's why pieces with lakes get a third terrain shade instead of two, and why long routes run at maximum elevation. Vernal Falls taught me the extra manual time is worth it for a bit more depth. And on a long hike there's so little elevation to work with that pushing it as far as it goes is the only thing that makes the terrain read properly. Neither one costs you anything extra. They're just what the piece needs.

I work closely with everyone who orders. You'll see mock-ups and a final render to approve before anything goes on the printer. It takes more out of my day, but I'd rather spend the time than send out something that isn't right.

What I want is for someone to open the box and be back there for a moment. To me, it isn't just a product, it's somebody's memory, and I want to do it justice.

Behind the name

— Kim