Procedural / Heightmap Island (Land + Sea)WIP V1.2

Procedural Island + (Experimental) Heightmap Generator — WIP v1.1

Turn a desk into a tiny archipelago 🌊 This OpenSCAD project makes a 3D-printable island sitting on a beach plate, with an optional sea base that can follow the shoreline. It includes a heightmap mode so you can use your own grayscale image for terrain… but heads-up: importing your own heightmap is in there yet not super plug-and-play (see notes below). This is an early WIP v1.1.

Highlights

• Procedural coastline (random but controllable), or image heightmap (experimental).
• Clean look: island sits on top of the beach (no seam).
• Sea that hugs the island (offset margin) or simple circular sea.
• Smooth slopes (hull-blended) or classic terraces.
• Single file, OpenSCAD nightly, no external libs.

What’s in the zip

• island.scad (all parameters via Customizer)
• Optional heightmap.png placeholder (swap with yours)

Quick Start (Procedural)

1. Open in OpenSCAD nightly.
2. Set size: island_radius, island_height.
3. Shape the coast: seed, roughness, jaggedness, lumpiness.
4. Clean slope: island_smooth = true and raise terraces.
5. Plates: sea_match_island = true, tweak sea_margin.
6. Uniform look: island_on_beach = true, beach_fill_inside = true.

Heightmap Mode (EXPERIMENTAL — not super easy yet)

You can import your own heightmap, but it’s rough around the edges:

• Put a grayscale PNG next to the .scad (large images can be slow).
• In the Customizer set:
  • use_heightmap = true
  • heightmap_file = "yourfile.png"
  • Tune: hm_radius (circular crop), hm_height (vertical scale), hm_invert (flip highs/lows), hm_scale_xy (XY scaling)
• If orientation looks off, that’s image coordinates—toggle hm_invert or mirror in your editor.
• If it looks jagged/banded: blur the PNG a bit, lower hm_height, then Design → Flush Caches in OpenSCAD.
• Current beach in heightmap mode is circular (based on hm_radius). A true contour-derived beach is on the roadmap.

TL;DR: Heightmap import works, but it’s not a one-click flow yet. Expect some fiddling. 🙂 (only works in OPENSCAD right now by adding your picture to the libraries file and then changing the placeholder which is (heightmap_file) change this to the name of whatever heightmap you want to use.)

Print Tips

• Layer height: 0.16–0.28 mm (finer = smoother hill).
• Walls: 3+, Top/Bottom: 4–6.
• Infill: 10–15% (base plates add stiffness).
• Supports: None needed.
• Materials: PLA or PETG. Optional color swap for water/sand/land layers.

Changelog — v1.2

• Beach is now tapered to to more natural
• Island now seats on the beach (uniform look) + small overlap to hide seam.
• Sea can follow coastline (procedural) with adjustable margin.
• Smooth mode added (hull between slices) to reduce visible banding.
• Heightmap mode added (experimental).
• Option to fill beach inside (solid plate under the island).

Roadmap / WIP

• Contour-based beach from heightmap grayscale level (non-circular).
• Rivers / crater lakes carves.
• Preset seeds & STL exports.
• Friendlier heightmap “wizard” in-SCAD.