Lasercut Topographic Maps, Sequel (2022)
Software: Adobe Illustrator, GIS
Techniques: Lasercutting
I’ve got a soft spot for topographic maps, as it would seem. Check out this project’s predecessor here, which uses less GIS and more casting.
I like Pokemon and spending a lot of time on things. I thought it’d be fun to make a 3D relief map of the Pokemon map from Red/Blue, which is loosely based on the Kanto prefecture in Japan. this seemed like a really fun time to merge real world tools with some fantasy worldbuilding.
A Really Fun Time Merging Real World Tools with Some Fantasy Worldbuilding
There are also some existing projects dedicated to making relief maps of the Pokemon world that provide interesting reference, but I wanted mine to look more realistic, or, barring that, more high fantasy style. So naturally the first step is to pop over to ArcGIS and take a look at what I can find. A few rabbit holes later and I realize both that ArcGIS doesn’t have data formatted the way I want it, but Kanto-GIS does; a few rabbit holes after that when I’m trying to splice together Mt. Fuji into the Shinjuku prefecture, I realize no one is actually going to be interrogating the realistic accuracy of this map as much as I will, but it’s far too late to turn back.
Notable casualties—there’s a route in Kanto called cycling road, which runs from Celadon City to Fuschia City. It’s loosely based on the Tokyo Bay Aqua Line, a 23.7 km expressway that’s a combination of a bridge and an underwater tunnel that was being developed around the same time as Pokemon Red and Blue. Two notable differences are that that Cycling Road, as its name suggests, only allows bicycles—and Cycling Road runs steeply downhill from Celadon (Tokyo-ish, 131’ elevation) to Fuschia (several potential analogues, including Futtsu and Tateyama City, all of which are roughly at sea level). I probably could’ve ignored this if I hadn’t already lovingly constructed a nice little sea ridge around the Safari Zone, just to the northeast.
Incidentally, the longest real world cycling bridge (at time of writing) is just under a kilometer, which puts us squarely behind the Pokemon world in public transit infrastructure as well as most everything else.
From there, it’s a matter of adjusting some formatting to make sure it fits in my lasercutter bed, playing the worst shape-recognition jigsaw puzzle in the world with the tiny island and crest pieces, and then putting the whole thing together. I added some little pins to mark the cities as well.
Yes, that is the Lord of the Rings end credit font (Aniron).