# Making a suburban pools map with the Backyard Pools Map preset > a sunny suburb where every backyard pool pops bright blue over warm desert sand This preset zooms right down to street level over a single sunny neighborhood: a black grid of roads and building footprints sitting on a warm desert-sand backplate, with every backyard swimming pool picked out in bright blue. It opens over a suburb west of Phoenix at zoom ~16.6, close enough that individual houses and their pools are visible - exactly the playful detail this design is built around. It's a charming, instantly readable piece for anyone who lives somewhere hot and pool-dotted: Arizona, California, Florida, Spain, Australia. The pools are the joke and the focal point, scattered like blue confetti across the tan suburb. The design ships with a black framed border already enabled, so it reads as a finished poster straight out of the box. ## What you need ### Laser cutting - 3 mm [laser-grade plywood](https://yxecreations.com/collections/laser-grade-plywood) or MDF for the engraved plate (1 sheet) - 3 mm [acrylic](https://yxecreations.com/pages/acrylic-sheets) in desert tan for the backplate, plus a small offcut of blue acrylic for inlaid pools (or paint it after cutting) - Any diode or CO2 laser that fits your target size (200×200 mm and up works well at this zoom) - Wood glue or CA glue, clamps or weights, sandpaper (220 grit) ### 3D printing - Any FDM printer; PLA in 3 colors (tan, black, bright blue) or a single color - Slicer that accepts 3MF (Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer) ### UV print / sublimation - The exported high-res PNG - UV flatbed printer or sublimation setup with a hardboard/aluminum blank ## Step 1 - Start from the preset Open [the Backyard Pools Map preset](/map-designer?preset=backyard-pools-map), then search for your own neighborhood and pan until a good cluster of pools sits in the middle. The preset opens at zoom ~16.6 over a Phoenix-area suburb - very tight, so individual pools show. This zoom is essential to the design: zoom out much past 15 and the pools shrink to dots. The export is locked to a square 1:1 frame, which suits a single neighborhood block nicely. ## Step 2 - Tune the layers The preset has two layer groups, top to bottom: - **Roads & buildings** - the whole suburb in one Solid layer: black `#000000` building footprints and the full road hierarchy (motorway, primary, secondary, tertiary, street, minor and their links, drawn 5 px down to 1 px), plus the star of the show - every backyard pool (`waterSwimmingPool`) filled bright blue `#0096c7`. Solid means the laser fill-engraves it, or it prints / 3D-prints as the colored bodies. The pools are the focal points scattered across the black grid; if a neighborhood is pool-rich the effect is delightful, so pan until a denser pocket sits in frame. - **Backplate** - solid base plate, desert sand `#e9d8a6`. Change this color to match your acrylic or paint. - **Border** - a black framed border (`globalBorderConfig`) is enabled with 10 mm padding, so the design comes pre-framed. If the black road-and-building layer feels too heavy, drop the smaller road features (minor, street, tertiary) and keep only the main roads so the pools stand out more. ## Step 3 - Export - **Laser:** export the per-layer SVG ZIP. The **Roads & buildings** layer (black grid plus the blue pools) is Solid, so fill-engraving it onto the tan plate is far more reliable than cutting the fine streets. For a premium two-material look, cut the pool shapes from blue acrylic and inlay them. Cut the **Backplate** and outer border. Turn on small-polygon cleanup to drop slivers. - **3D printing:** export 3MF for a multicolor stack (tan plate, black roads/buildings, blue pools), or STL for single color. - **UV print:** export the high-res PNG (4096 px). Keep the Background toggle on so the sand plate prints as a solid color, or turn it off for a transparent-background print on a colored substrate. ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Laser cutting & engraving This design has fine street lines and small pool shapes, so engraving the detail onto a single plate is the reliable approach - cutting the thin roads would leave fragile or lost geometry. 1. Cut the **Backplate** and its black border from your tan material first - it's the registration reference for everything else. 2. Fill-engrave the **Roads & buildings** layer directly onto the tan plate - the black road grid, building footprints, and the blue pools all live in this one Solid layer, so they engrave together in one pass with no loose pieces. 3. Pools: the simplest route is to engrave them and paint the recesses blue. For a premium look, cut the pool shapes from blue acrylic and inlay them into matching pockets engraved into the plate. 4. If inlaying, seat the blue pools with thin glue - or skip the squeeze-out with [3M tape](https://yxecreations.com/collections/3m-tape): 467 or 468 transfer tape for acrylic, 300LSE for harder materials. Weight flat for 30 minutes. 5. Sand the edges flush, finish with oil or clear spray. ## 3D Printing ### 3D printing 1. Export the 3MF and open it in your slicer - layers arrive pre-stacked with their colors (tan backplate, black roads and buildings, bright-blue pools). With an STL you'll slice in one color. 2. Print flat on the bed, no supports needed. 0.2 mm layer height is plenty. 3. Scale matters here: print at least 180–200 mm wide. The street lines and small pools are fine features, so going smaller risks dropping the thinnest roads and the smallest pools. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV print / sublimation 1. Export the high-res PNG. Background on = full-color artwork (black grid and blue pools on the sand plate); background off = transparent PNG so your substrate color becomes the suburb. 2. Print onto hardboard, slate, or aluminum; for sublimation, mirror the image and press per your blank's specs. The fine street detail and crisp blue pools reproduce perfectly in print, which makes it one of the easiest and best methods for this design. ## Make it yours - Pool-dense suburbs shine here: Phoenix, Scottsdale, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Miami, the Gold Coast, Marbella - anywhere backyards are full of blue. - Center it on a specific street and give it as a housewarming or pool-party gift - the recipient finds their own pool in the grid. - Swap the backplate to terracotta `#cb997e` or pale stucco `#f5ebe0` to match a different climate. - Recolor the pools to teal or turquoise, or make them all the same bold cyan for a more graphic, poster-like effect. - Drop the smaller roads (minor, street, tertiary) so the pools read as the clear focal point against an open suburb. - Engrave the neighborhood name or a coordinates line into the bottom border band before assembly. - Use the Hanger hole ring mounting option and cut at coaster or ornament size for a fun desk or fridge piece - or add a [snap clip](https://yxecreations.com/products/keychain-snap-clips-multiple-colours) and call it a keychain. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/backyard-pools-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/backyard-pools-map