
PapercraftMountains is taking a short break
Reviews
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Gary on Mar 22, 2021
5 out of 5 starsWhile my order was dispatched, its arrival was delayed because of an international mail hold up. I cannot praise highly enough the efforts of Papercraft Mountains staff in overcoming that problem and getting the order to me
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Kyra on Feb 12, 2021
5 out of 5 starsMade it all the way from Germany in time for Christmas! Much smaller than I was expecting, but honestly it makes it even more impressive.
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soverign on Jan 28, 2021
5 out of 5 starsJohann was super helpful when shipping tool much longer than expected. Excellent customer service & great models -- highly recommended!
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QbLulu on Nov 12, 2020
5 out of 5 starsvery nice model. cool way to make mountains, I think of buying some others too later. I did two evenings on the Uluru.
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Imme on Sep 17, 2020
5 out of 5 starsQuick delivery, beautiful item and such a cute handwritten card! Thank you :)
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Shilpa on Feb 21, 2020
5 out of 5 starsThis definitely needs some concentration! I bought this to help my daughter with a school project, and even though it was delicate in some parts, we really enjoyed the process of piecing everything together. This is such a great idea; it came in handy for us!
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Laurie on Feb 11, 2020
4 out of 5 starsAlthough my item didn’t ship on time, the owners send me templates that I could print out at home. Give yourself plenty of time as it is quite detailed and takes time to put together.
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About PapercraftMountains
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Here we are on our way to the ICA Mountain Cartography Workshop in 2016 - Jake is carrying our models in that shoe box!
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At the workshop, discussing our method in detail with the participants.
Make your own mountain sculptures from paper!
We love maps and mountains, and the process of turning them into 3D paper models allows us to explore both in great detail. It's a really unique and fun experience to turn a flat sheet of paper into a mountain sculpture!
We hope you'll enjoy building our mountains as much as we love developing them!
OUR STORY
Jake: I was following Daniel Huffman's tutorial on generating shaded reliefs using 3D rendering software, and slightly adapted the approach by first converting the DEMs to triangulated irregular networks before rendering them. The faceted appearance reminded me of the low-poly papercraft models that have been in vogue for a while, and I thought it might be fun to build a terrain model out of paper.
Johann: In June 2015 as we were cycling over the hills of Belgium we discussed what the qualities of such a model would have to be to be considered "optimal". When we returned home to Brussels and Stuttgart we both started to adapt existing triangulation algorithms for this specific problem. In the end I came up with a solution that strikes a good balance between terrain fidelity and having a small number of triangles, avoiding difficult-to-assemble thin and tiny triangles as much as possible. My background in numerical optimisation certainly came in handy for this.
We presented the first results at the ICA Mountain Cartography Workshop in April 2016 in the beautiful mountains of Berchtesgaden, Germany and received a lot of very encouraging feedback. Since then we have been working on new models - the Matterhorn, Mount Fuji and Mount St. Helens are already available, Uluru is currently in the works.
OUR METHOD
Creating these mountain sculptures is a surprisingly involved process!
First we identify the mountain we want to scale (no pun intended) and search for the terrain data and license high quality aerial images to use as a texture. Jake's experience with GIS (geographic information systems) software is really helpful for this!
Then we make a reduced representation of the terrain using triangles. We developed a software that helps us optimise the layout so that we get the highest fidelity model for a given complexity of the model. We really strive to make models that give the best result for the time you put into building them!
When the 3D model looks good we unfold it to make a printable template. Our objective here is to have parts that are easy to assemble. We typically make 3-5 test builds to determine a good construction order and tweak the layout a bit, like numbering the glue tabs in the best order of assembly.
The end result is a paper layout to build a mountain with just a craft knife or scissors and a bit of glue! The aesthetic is a beautiful blend of that hot low-poly faceted look and highly detailed textures that is really fascinating to build and look at!
Jake + Johann
Shop members
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Johann Dugge
Owner
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Jürnjakob Dugge
Owner
Production partners
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A print shop
Würzburg, Germany
They print the cards for us
Shop policies
Shipping
Customs and import taxes
Digital downloads
Payment options
Returns & exchanges
I gladly accept returns and exchanges
I don't accept cancellations
The following items can't be returned or exchanged
- Digital downloads
I accept returns I do not accept returns
I accept exchanges I do not accept exchanges
I accept cancellations I do not accept cancellations
Because of the nature of these items, unless they arrive damaged or defective, I can't accept returns for: