TRPHY
TRPHY Studio

Your first map, start to finish.

About ten minutes, most of it waiting for a preview. You need one thing to begin: a GPS track of somewhere you have been.

Start here

A guided tour of the workbench.

Fifteen notes pinned to the controls themselves — what each button does, and what the five types are for. About ninety seconds.

It runs on its own the first time you open a route, so you do not have to remember to come here.

What you need first

A GPX or TCX file — the file every watch and phone app exports. Where to find it:

Export the track on its own, not a bundle with photos in it. Anything over 300 metres works, up to 25MB a file.

The five types

Every route can be built as any of the five. They are not quality levels — they are five different objects, and which one suits you depends on the shape of what you did, and on whether the route or the place is the point.

Type 01

City — a street plan

A 150 mm disc with the real street network cut into it, plus the water, the parks, the buildings and the named architecture. The route stands proud on top so it reads from across a room.

Choose it when the whole course fits inside one town: a marathon, a half, a park run, a city ride.

Best at
Under about 15 km across
Subject
The streets
Watch
Cover too much ground and the streets become a grey smear — that is the map telling you to use Type 02
Type 02

Terrain — the land

The same disc, but the ground is the subject: grass, hills, mountains and snow, each on its own layer and its own filament. Roads and rivers are still cut in underneath.

Choose it when the day crossed country rather than a city — a sportive, a trail race, a long ride between towns.

Best at
15 km to a hundred and more
Subject
The relief
Watch
Flat country makes a flat disc. If there is no climb in it, Type 01 will say more
Type 03

Summit — the mountain

Short distance, enormous vertical. The relief is drawn near true scale and the contours are stepped, so from the side the disc looks like the thing you actually climbed.

Choose it for one mountain or one pass: Snowdon, Ben Nevis, Mont Ventoux, a via ferrata, a summit day.

Best at
Big climb, small footprint
Subject
The vertical
Watch
Look at it from the side in the viewer, not from above — that is the view it is designed for
Type 04

Atlas — a wall map, in tiles

Not a disc. A rectangular map up to 1440 mm on its longest edge, cut into pinned tiles that each fit a print bed and slide together afterwards. It is the only type that takes more than one GPX, so a walk that took a week comes out as one map with a cairn where each day finished.

Pick its subject with What this map is at the top of the panel: City, Terrain or Summit, exactly like the three discs.

Best at
Anything too big or too long for a disc
Tiles
215 mm square, every time
Watch
A big map is a long build and a lot of filament. Start small and grow it
Type 05

Map — draw your own area

The same wall map in the same tiles, but you choose the ground. Your route goes on a real map and you draw round the part you want to print — a circle, a rectangle, a square, or freehand. What you drew is what prints, edge for edge: no margin is added, because you already chose where the edge goes.

Choose it when the route is not the point. Half a marathon you actually remember, the loop round a park you run every week, the square mile you grew up in.

No GPX at all? Draw the route as well. Click along the way you went and it becomes a real track — the same file an upload would have made.

Best at
A place, rather than a track
Subject
City, Terrain or Summit, like Type 04
Watch
The bar counts your tiles as you draw. Nine is a weekend of printing

Still not sure? Upload the track and let the engine choose — it reads the shape of your route and opens the type that suits it. You can change your mind at any point from the Disc type menu. Upload several files at once and it opens as Type 04 automatically, because that is the only one that can hold them.

Step by step

  1. Sign inPut in your email address and we send you a link. There is no password to invent or forget — the link is the sign in, and it lasts thirty minutes.
  2. Upload your trackOn The engine, choose your file, give it a name if you like, and press Read the route. It takes a second: the engine measures the distance, the climb and how much ground it covers, and works out which city you were in.
  3. Look at the first previewThe workbench opens and starts building immediately — you do not have to ask it to. Give it ten seconds for a disc, longer for a big map, then spin the model with the mouse.
  4. Change something and watch it changeMove a slider. With Live ticked the model rebuilds on its own about a second after you let go. Previews are free and unlimited on every plan, so there is no reason to be careful.
  5. Build the printable filesPress Build STL. This is the real build — slower, at full detail, and it is the one that counts against your daily allowance.
  6. Download and printA ZIP arrives with one STL per colour and a text file telling your slicer exactly what to do with them. Load the whole set as one object with multiple parts, and do not scale it.

The upload page, labelled

2 of 3 routes left · 1 of 1 download today · free plan Upload a route Any track over 300 metres. Track file london-2026.gpx Call it London 2026 Read the route Your routes Sunday long run city 18.4 km Tour du Mont Blanc atlas 168 km 1 2 3 4 5
/studio/engine — where every route starts
  1. Your allowanceWhat is left, in plain numbers. A free account gets 3 routes for the life of the account and 1 printable build a day, which resets at midnight. Previews never count against anything.
  2. The file pickerOne GPX for a disc. Several at once for a journey that took more than a day — select them all here and they open as a Type 04 Atlas, stitched in the order they were walked. Up to 30 days on one map.
  3. A nameOptional. Left blank, the file's own name is used. You can rename it later from your account.
  4. Read the routeReads the file, measures it and opens the workbench. This is the only step that spends one of your free routes.
  5. Everything you have madeClick any of them to go back to it with every setting exactly as you left it.

The workbench, labelled

This is where you will spend the time. Controls on the left, the model filling the rest, the numbers along the top.

TRPHY Route London 2026 Upload a different GPX Course length 42.2 km Scale 1:18 000 City London Account 2 of 3 routes left Disc type Type 01 / City The disc Your route Ground and water Buildings STUDIO Model Filament slots Plan Detail Live Rebuild Build STL Drag to spin · scroll to zoom Queued, 1 ahead · drawing the 8 240 streets at 0.48mm · 22s 12 480 triangles · 7 parts · every part watertight Download the printable files 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
/studio/p/… — one route, one workbench
  1. TRPHYBack to all your routes. Everything on this screen is already saved.
  2. Upload a different GPXStarts a new route with a new workbench. It does not replace this one — this map stays exactly as it is.
  3. The numbersRead straight off your file: how far you went, how much ground the model covers, the scale it works out to, which city the engine recognised, and the climb. If the scale looks wrong, the ground covered is the control to change.
  4. Your allowanceThe same strip as the engine page, so you never have to go and look.
  5. Disc typeThe five types. Changing it reloads the panel with that type's own controls and its own sensible defaults. Anything you have moved and not yet built is lost when you switch — build a preview first if you want to come back to it.
  6. The control groupsClick a heading to open it. The ones you reach for most are open already; the rest are folded away so the panel is a panel rather than a wall. What is inside each is listed below.
  7. A group marked StudioLocked on the free plan. You can see what is in it, which is the point — it tells you what you would be unlocking rather than hiding it.
  8. The four viewsThe same model, four ways. Model is it as it will look printed. Filament slots colours every part by which spool it comes off, so you can see what a four-colour machine is actually being asked to do — and it is where you set those colours: one swatch per slot, as many swatches as the preset has slots. Plan is it flat from above, which is the honest check on whether the route reads. Detail is the report: triangles, parts, which landmarks were placed, whether every part is watertight, and where the build spent its time.
  9. LiveOn by default. Rebuilds the preview about a second after you stop moving a control. Turn it off if you want to set five things and then look once — on a big Atlas that is much faster.
  10. RebuildBuilds a preview now. You need it only when Live is off, or when you want to start again after cancelling.
  11. Build STLThe real one. Full detail, no shortcuts, and the files that come out are what your printer gets. On an Atlas this reads Build the tiles. This is the button that spends a download.
  12. The progress lineHonest about the queue: where you are in it, what the machine is doing right now, and how long it has been. A city takes a few minutes; a big Atlas can take considerably longer.
  13. Download the printable filesAppears when the build finishes. Downloading again later is always free, from here or from your account — the allowance is on making the files, not on fetching them.

Every button, in one list

Read the routeEngine page
Reads your file and opens a new workbench. Spends one free route.
Upload a different GPXWorkbench, top bar
Starts another route. Leaves this one alone.
Disc typeWorkbench, top left
Switches between Type 01–04. Reloads the panel and discards unbuilt changes.
+ Add another dayWorkbench, Type 04 only
Adds one or more GPX files to this map and re-sorts the whole journey by the time in the files. Free — it does not spend a route.
× beside a dayWorkbench, Type 04 only
Takes that day off the map. Asks first. The last remaining day cannot be removed.
LiveWorkbench, above the model
Rebuild automatically after every change. On by default.
RebuildWorkbench, above the model
Build a preview now. Free and unlimited.
Build STL / Build the tilesWorkbench, above the model
The full-detail build that produces the printable files. Spends a download.
Model · Filament slots · Plan · DetailWorkbench, above the model
Four views of the same build. Switching between them is instant and costs nothing.
FilamentsWorkbench, above the model
Shows or hides the filament strip. It is open to start with, on every view and every type, and stays however you leave it.
A filament swatchWorkbench, filament strip
Sets the colour of one AMS slot — your own spool rather than the one the model was designed around. The model, the print notes and the filament list all follow it. The number of swatches follows the slot preset.
Download the printable filesWorkbench, under the model
The ZIP. Free, for ever, as many times as you like.
Unlock with StudioWorkbench, inside a locked group
Goes to the plans page. Nothing is charged by pressing it.
RenameYour account
Renames a route or a build. The name is what appears on the ZIP.

What is in the control groups

The disc — how big it is, how thick, and how much ground it covers. The single most useful control on the page is the ground covered: it decides whether you get streets or countryside.

Your route — how wide and how tall the ribbon of your track is. Wider reads from further away; thinner shows more of the map under it.

Ground and water — the sea, rivers and lakes, how deep they are cut, and on a relief type how tall the land is allowed to stand.

There is no colour group in the panel. Everything about colour is in the Filaments strip under the model instead — the slot preset, one swatch per slot, and what is on each. It is open on every view and on every type; the Filaments button in the bar above the model puts it away if you want the model larger.

Buildings, Landmarks, Parks and trees, Contours and Fine detail — the Studio groups. Building heights and spread, how many landmarks and how large, tree size and spacing, contour steps and the snow line, and how much the geometry is simplified before it is exported.

On Type 04 / Atlas the panel is different, because a wall map is a different object: The map (what it is, how long its longest edge is, its proportion and its tile size), The ground, Streets and buildings, Your route including the day markers, Hills, rock and snow including vertical exaggeration, and Tiles and joints — whether the tiles are joined with pins or with dovetails, how big the joint is, and the clearance it is cut with.

Two round pins per seam, by default. They go on the right and lower edge of every tile and into matching holes on the other two, under the terrain, so the seam you see is a butt joint. Nothing is undercut: slide the tiles together flat on the table, left to right along the top row and then down. The pins line the map up and hold it square; a drop of gel glue in each hole is what holds it together, and the print notes say so. If you would rather it needed no glue at all, switch How they join to Dovetails — those cannot be pulled apart in the plane of the map, but every tile then has to be lowered in from directly above rather than slid.

When it is built

The ZIP holds one STL per colour, named so they sort into the right order in a slicer, plus a text file that tells you exactly what to do with them. An Atlas holds a set per tile, numbered Tile 1, Tile 2 and so on, with a sheet saying which tile goes where.

  1. Import them togetherSelect every STL in the folder and load them as a single object with multiple parts. Loaded one at a time they will not line up.
  2. Do not scaleEvery horizontal surface in the model is built to land exactly on a 0.2 mm layer boundary. Scaling breaks that and the colours band.
  3. Assign the slotsThe text file lists which part goes on which spool, with the colours it was designed around.
  4. Supports off, no brimThe model carries its own supports where it needs them. The profile in the text file is the tested one.

Check the Detail tab before you print. It tells you whether every part is watertight and which landmarks were actually placed — thirty seconds there saves an hour on the plate.

What counts against your allowance

Free

Costs you nothing

  • Every preview, however many.
  • Switching type, switching view, spinning the model.
  • Adding or removing days on a Type 04 map.
  • Downloading a ZIP again, later, for ever.
Counted

Costs you one

  • Read the route — 3 for the life of a free account.
  • Build STL — 1 a day on a free account, resetting at midnight.

Studio at £20 a month removes both, and unlocks the five locked control groups.

If something goes wrong

"That file could not be read as a GPX or TCX track." The export probably contains a route without timestamps, or a bundle rather than a track. Re-export as GPX from the original app.

"A disc is one route." You uploaded several files onto a type that takes one. Switch to Type 04 / Atlas, which takes them all.

The streets look like a grey smear. The map is covering too much ground for a street plan. Either reduce the ground covered, or move to Type 02 where the land is the subject.

The build is taking a long time. A large City map is genuinely heavy — tens of thousands of streets, each one drawn. The progress line says what it is doing. Leaving the page does not cancel it, but starting a new preview on another route will.

Nothing seems to happen when I press a button. Check you are still signed in; a link lasts sixty days. Sign in again and the route will be where you left it.

Anything else, write to hello@trphy.co.uk and say which route it was.

Upload your first route Sign in first