Making a summit keepsake with the Alpine Peak preset

Difficulty: Medium. Time: 2–3 hours. Best methods, in order: 3D printing (clean stepped summit), laser cutting, UV print.

This preset stacks nine summit contours from 2600 m to 4200 m into a hexagon, with glacier outlines traced over the ice fields. It loads on the Matterhorn and is built for big-name peaks - the mountain someone climbed, skied, or proposed on.

Open the Alpine Peak preset

What You'll Need

3D printing

FDM printer; PLA in stone gray or white, or multicolor via 3MF
3MF-capable slicer

Laser cutting

9 thin sheets (1.5–3 mm laser-grade plywood or chipboard) for the contours + 1 backplate sheet (dark, #1f2937)
Laser cutter, glue, weights

UV print / sublimation

High-res PNG, hexagon or square blank

Step 1 - Start from the preset

Open the Alpine Peak preset. It loads centered on the Matterhorn at zoom 12.3 - close enough that one massif fills the hexagon. Search your peak and keep zoom 12–13; center the actual summit, because the hexagon crop is unforgiving at the corners. Critical: the contour layers run 2600–4200 m in 200 m steps, tuned for 4000 m-class alpine peaks. For Rainier, Mont Blanc, or a 14er, shift the band up; for lower summits, shift it down (Step 2) - otherwise most layers render empty.

Step 2 - Tune the layers

Top to bottom:

Glaciers - Solid mode, the landcoverIce polygons rendered as a thin outline (line width 1, ice blue #7FB6C9). On screen it traces the glacier edges elegantly. For fabrication it needs a decision: at width 1 it's too thin to cut or print as a physical ribbon, so either treat it as an engrave/score layer on the laser, bump the width to 3+ if you want a printable ribbon, or hide it for single-color builds. For UV printing leave it exactly as is.
Topography 4200m → 2600m - nine contour plates at 200 m intervals. Delete the ones above your summit, and confirm the lowest one still shows terrain at the hexagon edges.
Backplate - #1f2937 dark slate hexagon, the valley floor.

Step 3 - Export

3D printing: STL (single color, then dry-brush the summit white) or 3MF. Hide the Glaciers layer first unless you raised its width.
Laser: per-layer SVG ZIP; small-polygon cleanup on - high contours produce gnat-sized islands. Export the Glaciers layer and run it as a score/engrave pass on the top contour plates, not a cut.
UV print: high-res PNG with everything visible - the glacier linework is the best part of the flat version.

Choose Your Build Method

3D printing

Hide (or widen) the Glaciers layer, export, and open in your slicer. The nine contours merge into a stepped summit pyramid on the hexagon plate.
Print flat, no supports; 0.12–0.16 mm layers make the 200 m steps crisp.
Scale 140 mm+ across flats so upper contours don't shrink to dots; export-time cleanup removes the hopeless slivers.
Two-tone trick with a single extruder: filament swap to white at the contour that matches the snowline (~3400 m on the Matterhorn).

Make It Yours

Built for icons: Matterhorn, Mont Blanc (shift band to 3000–4800 m), Rainier (2600–4400 m), Denali, your honeymoon volcano.
Climber's gift: add a route layer tracing the ascent line over the contours.
Snowline palette via 3MF: rock #6B6B6B below, white above, glaciers #A8D8E8.
Engrave the summit name, elevation, and the date of the climb on the backplate's visible margin.
Hanger hole ring + 100 mm hexagon = summit ornament for the tree.
Make the seven-summits set - same preset, seven peaks, one wall.
Swap the backplate to forest green #1E3B2E for treeline-and-rock contrast.

Open the Alpine Peak preset

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