Can you build my home?

Yes and no. Right now, MiniCityArt is going to focus on designing and producing the best downtown miniatures that we can. But our data sources cover much of the urban parts of the United States and most of the land east of the Mississippi, so if you can accept some extra cost and lead time, contact us and we'll work with you.

Where's my favorite neighborhood?

One thing we've learned in the making of a MiniCityArt is that cities are huge. We made a choice to focus on the 1-2 mile area of each city that contains the most prominent buildings. This means that some neighborhoods are cut off. We have plans to make larger models which will include more land area as well, and possibly smaller models focusing on individual neighborhoods. Sign up for our email list (bottom of every page) to be notified of any changes to our line-up.

How big can you print these?

There's scale and there's size. Read our blog post about it here. Most of our 3D printed cities are in 1:7500 or 1:10000 scale, so one inch is about 1/8th of a mile. These data support prints up to about 1:2500 scale without causing difficult technical problems. This means we can make miniature cities with buildings about three times larger. There is no practical limit on physical size, though - we could print the entire state of Rhode Island at 1:10000 scale, and it would be 25 feet high by 20 feet wide, and show every town, road, building, and tree in the state. Challenge us, I dare you.

How durable are they? Can I touch it?

Yes, please pick them up and touch them! They are durable and color-fast. They should survive a short fall, but it would probably lose a building or two if dropped onto a hard floor or at a bad angle. Unlike resin-based 3D prints, you can expose these to direct sunlight and they won’t change color.

The world doesn't need more plastic; so why this?

As stewards of the planet, we should absolutely limit the amount of plastic that we generate and toss out. With this in mind, MiniCityArt uses a starch-based plastic called Polylactic acid. It is recyclable (if you want), and biodegradable. The 3-D prints are mounted on simple wood frames, also obviously biodegradable. But we hope that your MiniCity provides a lifetime of enjoyment on display in your home or office, and if it doesn't, please give it to someone who will enjoy it instead. See our blog post Creating Art and Caring for the Planet for more information about what we are doing to promote a more sustainable, eco-friendly business. If we can do more, please tell us how.

Are the files for sale?

We're sorry, but we're not doing that yet. We've invested considerable time into developing methods to make these 3D models, and can't control their use once they get out. There are other sellers with digital models of cities, but they use the more-easily-processed buildings-only data sets. We'll eventually process and offer that data for free on our Thingiverse page, but we're focused now on making the best laser-scan 3D cities possible.

Something broke, what do I do?

We’ve improved our manufacturing and shipping methods to try to prevent any piece from breaking, but, hey, life is weird and things happen. If anything breaks, please e-mail us, ideally with a close-up photo of the broken area and part (if you have it), and we’ll try to make it right.

If a part breaks off and you want to fix it yourself, we recommend using superglue (cyanoacrylate) and a steady hand. Make sure the part is clean and fits properly before trying this method, and avoid getting the glue on your fingers. Once the glue is applied (only one surface needs it) hold the piece in place for about a minute then gently release.