Any models of bumpy worlds, like Iapetus, Hyperion, and Phoebe?

[IsaacKuo]

I'm wondering if anyone makes scale models of "bumpy" worlds, such as smaller moons or asteroids. Or if there are 3d models, which could be used for custom 3d printed models.

Among the "bumpy" worlds which we should have sufficient data for are Saturn's moons Iapetus, Hyperion, and Phoebe, as well as the asteroids Vesta, 433 Eros, and 25143 Itokawa.

I'm not sure whether we have enough views of Mars's moons Phobos and Deimos.

I think Iapetus would be a particularly dramatic scale model. It's round enough to obviously still be a "world", but it has both exotic coloration (two-tone) and exotic form (equatorial ridge, truly bumpy texture).

Larger worlds are smooth as a cueball; most smaller worlds look like a random rock.

[ngc3314]

There is a collection of digital shape models for asteroids here. Someone has made desktop physical models of some of these, seen occasionally in planetarium displays and the like. Model and desktop are remarkably useless web search terms for this.

Over at UMSF, the data turned up to make Vesta in Legos.

Chuck Clark in Georgia has been doing interestingly folded maps of the Martian moons and some asteroids which make helpful paper models. Examples: Phobos. He has several asteroid maps of this kind here.

[IsaacKuo]

Thanks! It seems those shapes are polygonal--suitable for graphical rendering, but not directly useful for generating a physical scale model with physical texture. You would end up with something like that Phobos model--physically smooth or faceted with an image "painted" on.

Maybe I could try and write some sort of software to generate a high resolution 3d model based on the raw image data. Not that I have time for such a project right now, but it's something for me to keep in mind if no one else has already done it.

[Solfe]

UT has a couple of 3d photos.

[eburacum45]

Here's one for 25143 Itokawa in Celestia's native cmod format (the 3ds version has disappeared)
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10984

Someone posted a Iapetus with a nice equatorial ridge, but the rest of the model was smooth and spherical. Iapetus is far from either.