Making a national-park trail map with the Forest and Trails preset

Difficulty: Medium. Time: 2–3 hours. Best methods, in order: laser cutting (cut the fills, engrave the trails), UV print, 3D printing.

This preset recreates the national-park visitor map in layers: hiking trails and park roads over forest green, rivers and lakes in blue, all on a dark backplate. It loads on Yosemite Valley and suits any park, trail network, or favorite hiking area.

Open the Forest Trails preset

What You'll Need

Laser cutting

3 mm laser-grade plywood for the forest layer; a backplate sheet (dark stain, #1f2937 in the preset)
Optional blue acrylic for water
Laser cutter, glue, weights - plus plan to engrave the trail and road layers

UV print / sublimation

High-res PNG, flat blank - the flat version looks like a proper park poster

3D printing

FDM printer; multicolor (3MF) recommended - green, blue, black, dark gray

Step 1 - Start from the preset

Open the Forest Trails preset. It loads on Yosemite Valley at zoom 12.6 - a whole valley with its trail web. Search your park and stay around zoom 12–13.5: wide enough to catch the trail network, close enough that individual paths separate. Frame so a river or lake anchors the composition; trails alone can read as scribbles.

Step 2 - Tune the layers

Five layers, top to bottom:

Trails - Solid mode, roadsPath at width 2, black. The star of the preset: every hiking path in frame. If the web is too dense, zoom in slightly rather than thickening lines.
Park roads - Solid mode, roadsSecondary (width 3) and roadsStreet (width 2), black. The drivable loop roads. Toggle off roadsStreet for backcountry areas.
Forest - Solid mode, landcoverForest filled #2E7D43. Big organic green shapes - the body of the piece.
Water - Solid mode: lakes/rivers filled #4EA8DE, plus waterwayRiver (width 3) and waterwayStream (width 2) as ribbons.
Backplate - #1f2937 dark slate; reads as granite/meadow wherever forest isn't.

For flat prints, note that black trails over the dark backplate can get lost - recolor Trails to a warm tan like #E8DCC0 for print versions.

Step 3 - Export

Laser: per-layer SVG ZIP. Cut Forest, Water, and the Backplate; run Trails and Park roads as engrave passes (width-2 path ribbons are too stringy to cut and glue). Small-polygon cleanup on - forest cover is full of sliver polygons.
UV print: high-res PNG; recolor trails first (see above). Background off gives a transparent PNG for printing on wood, where bare substrate plays the granite role.
3D printing: 3MF for the four colors; STL if you'll paint.

Choose Your Build Method

Laser cutting

Cut the Backplate from dark-stained stock.
Cut the Water layer - lake and river shapes - from blue acrylic or painted ply. Tape before cutting; stream ribbons are delicate, and it's fine to let the thinnest ones go and keep only the main river.
Cut the Forest layer from your green material - large organic pieces, easy to handle.
Glue water and forest onto the backplate using the screen as the placement guide. 3M tape 467 or 468 is ideal for acrylic water shapes; 300LSE grips harder materials.
Engrave Park roads, then Trails, through the assembled top surface (or onto the forest layer before gluing - test alignment on scrap first). Engraved-through-green trails look like routed paths.
Finish matte; a thin frame in the backplate color completes the park-poster look.

Make It Yours

Works anywhere trails cluster: Yosemite, Zion, Banff, your local state park or trail-running network.
Highlight the hike: keep Trails subtle and add a route layer over your exact line in a bold color.
Autumn palette: forest #B5651D, water #3E6B8C, trails cream.
Topo mashup: add two or three topography layers under the forest for valley walls.
Engrave trailhead names and mileages along the bottom margin.
Patch version: small export + Stitch holes mounting option, cut from leatherette.
Mark the campsite or proposal spot with a heart icon at export.

Open the Forest Trails preset

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