For laser cutters that read SVG or DXF

Draw a box on the map. Cut the depth.

StrataBurn turns a lake, a bay or a mountainside into a stack of layers you can cut, using real survey data for the place you picked. You get SVG and DXF files with one colour per layer, ready to open in LightBurn.

Lower Tampa Bay cut as six stacked wood layers, deepest water darkest — 27.56°N 82.74°W Lower Tampa Bay, six layers from NOAA survey depths. The dark groove running corner to corner is the shipping channel under the Sunshine Skyway.

What it makes

Lakes, bays and coastline

Pick any stretch of water and StrataBurn cuts it into depth layers. You choose how many layers, from three to seven, or a fixed depth for each one. Rivers, roads, buildings and place names can go on their own layers if you want them.

Mountains and valleys

The same idea on dry land, from elevation data: 10 m detail across the US and 30 m almost everywhere else. Have your own elevation file? Upload the GeoTIFF instead.

From a photo

Upload a picture and get it back as a layered design, split by light and dark, with a check that the result still looks like the original.

From a sentence

Describe what you want, like a heron standing in reeds, and StrataBurn draws it as layered artwork sized for your sheet.

The files

The Tampa Bay piece as cut lines, each layer in a different colour — The piece above as you'd download it. Each colour is one sheet.

SVG and DXF. Opens in LightBurn and xTool Creative Space, with LightBurn's layer colours already set.
Sized to your material. Tell it the longest side of your sheet and every layer comes out at that size.
Registration frame on every sheet, so the stack lines up when you glue it.
Nothing too small to cut. Slivers under 1 mm are removed from cut layers before you download.
Checked before you get it. Crossing lines, broken shapes and missing layers are caught and reported.

Where the depth comes from

Every design uses the best source that covers the spot you picked. If only rough data exists there, StrataBurn tells you before you start, not after.

US coasts: NOAA hydrographic surveys, 2–16 m
Great Lakes: NOAA Great Lakes bathymetry
US and Ontario lakes: State and provincial lake surveys
European seas: EMODnet Digital Bathymetry
Australia: Geoscience Australia AusBathyTopo
Arctic: IBCAO, 100 m
Everywhere else: GEBCO global grid; GLOBathy for 1.4 million lakes
Shorelines: OpenStreetMap

Pricing

Not set yet. When StrataBurn opens you'll be able to pay for a single design when you need one, or join as a member if you make them often. Prices will be posted here before anyone is charged.