About this 3D model
Here is a picture relief map, usually called a lithopane: aer_1948.stl. Lithopanes are inverse relief maps and the fortran program used to make relief maps, see thing:110173, was easily modified to make lithopanes. The program takes a grayscale negative in raw format and outputs an openSCAD program. When the openSCAD program is executed a lithopane is produced. The source code and input file are included. Makerbot has a lithopane tool that turns any photograph into a lithopane - see thing:74322. It is an easy to use application.