What if your GIS data didn't stop at the screen? Now in ArcGIS Pro, you can export a Local Scene straight to .STL or .glTF file formats and send it to a 3D printer — turning DEMs, bathymetry, and cityscapes into objects you can hold, rotate, and pass around a conference table. Suddenly a ridgeline isn't a color ramp; it's something you trace with your finger.
3D Print of San Bernardino Mountains
That shift matters more than it sounds. A physical model changes the conversation with stakeholders, gives planners and designers a tactile handoff from analysis, and makes side‑by‑side scenario comparisons instantly legible in a workshop. It's also, frankly, one of the most compelling demo artifacts you can bring to a booth or a customer meeting — the kind of thing people pick up before you've even finished your intro slide.
In this StoryMap, I walk through the full pipeline we've been prototyping in the GeoExperience Center lab: the three paths from ArcGIS Pro to .STL — the ExportSceneContentsFormat class in the ArcGIS Pro SDK for .NET, Paul Gibbs' open‑source STL Export Add‑In (which wraps that same class and adds a watertight extruded base), and the new Share tab UI in ArcGIS Pro 3.7. I cover the PrusaSlicer tricks we've picked up for repair, base construction, multi‑color painting, and print tuning in the slicer application. If you've ever wanted to hand someone your map instead of showing it to them, start here: To Infill-ity and Beyond Storymap
Happy Printing!
Hannah
