Laser cutting topographic maps

I've added another project to my current assortment of a DIY coffee table, Breakout boxes, and pot lights at home: laser cutting a 3D elevation map of Vancouver. You can often see this wooden maps at craft fairs and they take a fair amount of work: you have to extrapolate the elevation data from maps, create a 3D vector-based file, accurately scale it to the thickness and size of your material, then assemble it, typically gluing all the nested elevation layers one by one.

It's quite a bit of work and I've stopped and started numerous times. I am also definitely not a great geographer, so a lot of the GIS and elevation data is a bit confusing to me; I'm not even sure what the difference is between topographic, elevation, digital elevation, and contour maps! But I've somehow made it a point where I can start assembling my first prototype. Here is the 3D file I've created so far of Vancouver:

I had to exaggerate the hills a bit so they contrast more with the flat areas but I'm really happy with what I have so far. There's quite a few different ways to get this point, so here are some of the links I used so I don't forget:

• http://www.meshmixer.com/
• http://www.meshlab.net/
• https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview
• https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Detail/Index?id=8699194120463301363&appLang=en&os=Mac&autostart=true
• http://jthatch.com/Terrain2STL/
• https://data.vancouver.ca/datacatalogue/contour.htm
• https://opentopography.org/
• https://qgis.org/en/site/
• https://apps.gov.bc.ca/ext/mtec/public/products/mapsheet
• https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/data/geographic-data-services/topographic-data/elevation/digital-elevation-model