Half Dome, California, USA, 1:50000

If you've been to Yosemite, or seen the default desktop background on OS X, then you know Half Dome. This iconic granite dome towers 1800' over its smooth back side, and 4700' above the valley floor to the Northwest (about 2000' of that drop is pure vertical). Most photos of Half Dome are taken from the West end of the storied valley at Tunnel View or as part of a breathtaking panorama from Glacier Point, itself 3200' above the flat valley floor. There's a trail to the top which passes over numerous footbridges and pools, but the ascent is not for the faint of heart, requiring 4800' elevation change and using a fixed cable on the final slope.

Like Half Dome itself, this model is oriented along a Northeast-Southwest axis. It encompasses all of Half Dome, including Ansel Adams' "Diving Board", past Ahwiyah Point, all the way down to Tenaya Canyon and the edge of Mirror Lake. To the South it has Grizzly Peak, Vernal Fall, and Nevada Fall. Both domes at the foot of the Little Yosemite Valley are here: Liberty Cap and its smaller cousin Mt. Broderick. Being derived from LiDAR data, larger models will have physical bumps where there are trees.

The work we do here at TinyMtn central in Boston would not be possible without publicly-funded research. The extreme accuracy and detail possible by manipulating LiDAR point cloud data sets means that this model would have to be printed 30" wide to exhaust the available detail. Alas, Shapeways can't handle that, and I couldn't afford it anyway. The color data comes from USGS aerial orthophotos, which contain shadows. Unfortunately, the shadow in that data is on the sheer cliff face of Half Dome, so this model won't quite look like it does on the OS X 10.10 desktop. Nevertheless, this is the most accurate 3D model you can get of this important, imposing, iconic piece of American granite. Now go see the real one!

Model scale is 1:50000
Model covers an area approximately 2.2 by 2.1 miles
Altitudes covered: 3972' to 8844'
There is no vertical exaggeration applied to this model. This is a true-to-life scale model of a real place.

Click here for more sizes.
Click here for other 1:50000 models.

TinyMtn models are most affordable in the "Sandstone" and "White Strong and Flexible" materials. This model is in "Sandstone," which is a glued gypsum material. When you receive the model it will be ready for display, though it may smell funny and need some time to air out. "Sandstone" models are much more brittle than "White Strong and Flexible" models, but feel more like light stone. Do not soak it in water, though you can safely seal it with Polycrylic or a similar water-based clear spray sealant. Read more about this popular material here.

These models have been optimized for the above materials, and are not offered in other materials for strength or cost reasons. If you need one in another material, please tinymtnbiz@gmail.com and we'll do our best to fulfill your request.

(C) 2017 TinyMtn (TM)
Model created using GDAL, NetPBM, Gmsh, Carve, MeshLab, and other custom software

Lidar data acquisition and processing completed by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM). NCALM funding provided by NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, Instrumentation and Facilities Program. EAR-1043051. https://dx.doi.org/10.5069/G9W66HPH

This material is based on data and processing services provided by the OpenTopography Facility with support from the National Science Foundation under NSF Award Numbers 1226353 and 1225810.

Source of aerial orthoimagery data: U.S. Geological Survey The USGS home page is https://www.usgs.gov/