# Making a gothic keepsake with the City Cemetery Map preset > respectful memorial maps of historic grounds This preset maps historic cemeteries the way they deserve: sage-green grounds and bone-white paths floating on a charcoal night, framed at walking zoom on Père Lachaise. The winding path networks of garden cemeteries make genuinely beautiful abstract art - for walking-tour prints, genealogy gifts, Halloween decor, and anyone whose favorite place in a city is its quietest one. ## What you need - **UV printing:** flatbed UV printer, black or charcoal [acrylic](https://yxecreations.com/pages/acrylic-sheets) (the background-off trick is made for this), or white acrylic/aluminum for the full-art version - **Sublimation:** sublimation printer + paper, **white** poly-coated aluminum or hardboard (the charcoal field must come from ink), heat press, heat tape, butcher paper - **Laser engraving:** laser plus black-anodized aluminum or black-cap two-tone acrylic; slate coasters also love this design - **3D printing:** multi-color printer; charcoal, sage, and bone filaments - just three or four colors ## Step 1 - Start from the preset Open [the Cemetery Map preset](/map-designer?preset=cemetery-map). It loads Père Lachaise at zoom 15 - tight walking zoom, because a cemetery is a small subject and its path network is the art. Search your cemetery by name (the famous garden cemeteries geocode well: Highgate, Green-Wood, Mount Auburn, Recoleta, Bonaventure). Center so the cemetery's `landuseCemetery` polygon fills most of the frame with a ring of charcoal city around it - that dark margin is the composition. If the grounds are large, zoom out to 14.5; never wider than ~14 or the paths thin to threads. ## Step 2 - Tune the layers One Solid layer group, **Cemetery**: - `land` - `#33312E` charcoal, the surrounding city as darkness. - `landuseCemetery` - `#6F7F66` sage, the hero fill. This is what makes the grounds glow against the night. - `landusePark` - `#56644F` deeper green for adjacent parks, one step darker so the cemetery stays the focus. - `water` - `#26323A` near-black blue. - Paths, bone-toned: `roadsSecondary` `#D9D2C0` width 2, `roadsStreet` `#C9C2AE` width 1.5, `roadsPath` `#BFB8A4` width 1.5 - `roadsPath` is the one doing the real work inside the grounds; garden cemeteries are mostly footpaths. Everything important is high-contrast: bone on sage, sage on charcoal. The palette survives every method. If your cemetery's internal paths are mapped as service roads rather than footpaths and the grounds look empty, that's an OSM data gap - pick a better-mapped cemetery or accept a quieter design. ## Step 3 - Export - **UV on black acrylic:** toggle **Background off** (and hide `water`) - the charcoal city vanishes and the sage grounds with bone paths float on the black panel. The signature output for this preset. - **Sublimation / white substrates:** keep everything on; the ink builds the night. - **Laser:** per-layer SVG ZIP, background off. - **3D:** 3MF. - **Hanger hole** is the obvious Mounting holes pick - a cemetery-map ornament is peak gothic Christmas. **Corner holes** for a standoff wall piece on [anodized standoff spacers](https://yxecreations.com/products/4-pack-anodized-standoff-spacers). The **compass icon** overlay suits the walking-tour framing. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV printing 1. Export the transparent PNG (Background and water off) for black acrylic, or the full PNG for light substrates. 2. In the RIP, add a white underbase beneath the sage and bone art so it sits opaque on the dark panel. 3. Clean the acrylic with IPA, register, print. 4. A matte varnish keeps it funereal; gloss makes it pop-gothic - both work. ### Sublimation 1. Print **mirrored** at final size, all layers on - the blank must be white; the charcoal field comes from ink. 2. Tape face-down to a white poly aluminum panel. 3. Press with the settings recommended for your material, paper, and inks, butcher paper above and below. 4. Peel hot. Dense charcoal fields transfer well on gloss metal; the bone paths stay readable because they're printed tones, not knockouts. ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Laser engraving A dark-field design, so skip raw-wood rastering of the full art and go reveal-style: 1. Export per-layer SVGs with Background off. 2. On black-anodized aluminum or black-cap acrylic, engrave `landuseCemetery` as a light fill (low power or a dithered pass), then the three path tiers at full mark power so they read brightest. 3. On slate coasters, engrave everything that isn't background - the laser marks slate pale gray, an absurdly on-theme material. 4. Cut the rectangle (acrylic) and the hanger hole if you exported one. ## 3D Printing ### 3D printing 1. Export the 3MF - charcoal base, sage grounds, bone paths is a tidy three-to-four filament plaque (merge `landusePark` into the cemetery green or drop it). 2. The width-1.5 paths are at the FDM edge at small sizes; print 180 mm+ or bump paths to width 2 before export. 3. Charcoal + sage + bone matte PLA; 0.12 mm layers for the winding path detail. 4. Add the hanger hole at export and it prints straight into the plaque for a hangable piece. ## Make it yours - The garden-cemetery canon: Highgate (London), Green-Wood (Brooklyn), Mount Auburn (Boston), Recoleta (Buenos Aires), Bonaventure (Savannah), Vienna Zentralfriedhof. - Halloween swap: grounds `#4A3B5C` dusky violet, paths `#E8DCC8`, land `#1A1A1A` - full gothic. - Daylight-memorial swap: land `#F2EFE8`, grounds `#9DB58C`, paths `#FFFFFF` for a gentler genealogy gift. - Drop the **heart icon** overlay on a family plot for a memorial keepsake - handled with care, this is the most meaningful customization in the toolkit. - Add a **route layer** in `#B08D57` antique gold tracing the famous-graves walking tour (Wilde to Morrison at Père Lachaise). - Circle export + **Hanger hole** from black acrylic = the gothic ornament of the year. - Print the city's three historic cemeteries as a matching triptych. - Zoom out to 13 and let the cemetery sit as a small sage island in a sea of charcoal city - a quieter, more poetic composition. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/cemetery-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/cemetery-map