Lego Crater Lake Cartographic Map

Overview

Originally produced as the final assignment for the Cartography course at PCC (Portland Community College) with Christina Friedle, the idea of a LEGO map quickly led to exploring processes well outside the PCC GIS curriculum, namely Blender and BrickLink Studio. Early on it was decided the map would use LEGO as the medium to help communicate simple core ideas about experiencing our National Parks: Fun, Activity, Education, Family and Community. In tandem with Lego’s own Brand Values — Imagination, Creativity, Fun, Learning, Caring and Quality — these core ideas framed every decision after, from the printed size providing a three-quarters perspective that is just under a 1:1 scale and laid out before the viewer as if on a large open table ready for discussion, interaction and play, to the map title itself being built of LEGO and finally defining the content of all the individual scenes highlighting points of interest at Crater Lake National Park.

Methodology

Terrain Data Preparation

Elevation data was provided as a part of the Cartography course and included USGS high resolution LiDAR derived DEM and Bathymetry. After some initial research it was decided Blender could be used to create a 3D model that could then be input into BrickLink Studio. This was my first foray into Blender and that tool’s deep learning curve was incompatible with the 8 week project timeline, so as with many processes in GIS sometimes it helps to check if someone else has already done the work. Conor O’Kane had already created an STL from this very same data. This 3D model was used with instructor approval and then cut in half roughly along the NE/SW axis in Blender and each half exported as the West Rim and East Rim STL files. It should be noted that 3D model generation from GIS elevation data via Blender was successfully pursued in later projects.

Brick-Based Rendering

BrickLink Studio is free (but unfortunately closed) software that acts as a sort-of LEGO CAD with some particularly useful tools for this project. Arguably the most important tool BrickLink Studio provided was spectacularly realistic rendering and lighting output. Often the printed map is assumed to be a photograph of a real LEGO model I built, which feels like a compliment to both my commitment to the project but also the output of BrickLink Studio itself.

BrickLink Studio can also display a reference image in the builder, mosaic an image into a single layer of a selected brick type or, as used in this project, BrickLink Studio can ingest a 3D object file (in this case an STL) and create a voxelized 3D sculpture, by selected brick type and base size (in bricks or studs) — this model can be colored by the object’s original texture or, in this instance, by layer. Unfortunately the by layer option assigns random colors to each layer. This is where my actual commitment to the project was tested. Each layer was sorted and selected, brick-by-brick, and assigned a LEGO official color, included in BrickLink Studio and cross checked for the later layout with this LEGO color hex code reference that referenced a Landsat 8 image of Crater Lake from August 2024.

Six scenes were created from a list of points of interest in Crater Lake National Park: Crater Lake Lodge, Castle Crest Wildflower Trail, the views from Rim Drive itself, Mt. Scott Summit, Cleetwood Cove Trail and the Backcountry Camping opportunities at the park. Work began on the scenes only after the West Rim and East Rim models were already integrated and printed in a test layout presented at two peer reviews, one in the Cartography course and one with my daughter’s pre-K class. The peer review by children was essential in defining the audience and tone for the scenes and linked back to the project core ideas and LEGO brand values in a way that put the finished map into focus. Each scene with the exception of Castle Crest Wildflower Trail and Backcountry Camping were created from a reference image of the point of interest. One family is featured in every scene except Mt. Scott Summit, again a result of the pre-K peer review. So many stories erupted out of these enthusiastic little minds after looking at that early version of the layout, stories about parks, hikes, mountains, camping, swimming and playing with LEGOs but I noticed every one of those stories started with the words “My family…”.

BrickLink Studio’s final useful tool was the ability to output a detailed CSV file of data points about each model including real-world dimensions, weight, piece count and estimated cost.

Visualization and Layout

ArcGIS Pro and Canva were used for the final layout. The XY extent of the original 3D model was replicated with the Landsat 8 image in an ArcGIS Pro layout to create accurate map elements like a scale bar and north arrow, which were exported for use with the BrickLink Studio render exports in Canva for the final layout. Selected fields from the CSVs of each model were added in Canva as brick data tables. The peer reviews had shown the first questions anyone asked from ages 4-50 were “How many pieces is it?”, “How big is it?” and “How much did that cost to build?” and thankfully that data was conveniently already present.

Outputs

• Large-format print: 6 ft × 18 in (designed to mimic the real world LEGO scale of the model were it real)
• Awarded Cartography (General) at Portland GIS in Action 2025 Map Gallery
• BrickLink Studio models of the West Rim and East Rim of the selected overview park extent, each of the six scenes and the title

Reflections

This project revealed the tension between cartographic precision and the constraints of a physical medium. LEGO bricks impose a minimum spatial resolution and a finite color palette, forcing deliberate design choices about what information to preserve and what to abstract. The final success of this project would not have been possible without the invaluable input of the peer review process involving many perspectives, experiences and ages, allowing a hypothetically public facing project to include, throughout the process, input from a relatively broad cross-section of the public given the group sample size. The result is a map that communicates those original core ideas of Fun, Activity, Education, Family and Community in every element to a broad audience from the moment the title is read, Building Fun at Crater Lake National Park.