It's Snowing in my CPU — a Snowflake catalogue
She was all stars and arrows, squares and triangles of ice and light, like a church window; she was like a flower with many shining petals; she was like lace and she was like a diamond. But best of all, she was herself and unlike any of her kind.
— Paul Gallico, Snowflake
Go ahead, meet some snowflakes.
Somewhere in the world, it's snowing. But you don't need to go far—it's always snowing on this page. Explore random flurries, snowflake families and individual flakes. There are many unusual snowflakes and snowflake family 12 and family 46 are very interesting.
But don't settle for only pixel snowflakes—make an STL file and 3D print your own flakes!
Ad blockers may interfere with some flake images—the names of flakes can trigger ad filters.
And if after reading about my flakes you want more, get your frozen fix with Kenneth Libbrecht's excellent work and Paul Gallico's Snowflake.
This page uses code contributed by Alexander Pruss to generate an STL file for any of the flakes in the catalogue. The code is now hosted here to cross-origin requests.
authentically-grown flakes for your tree
Here is the 3D printed snowflake morptel. Yes, they all have names—snowflakes are people too.
Snowflake to STL conversion
You are about to generate STL for snowflake arpin (shown below).
To generate STL for a different flake, browse to the flake's page and click the Generate STL file for 3D printing link in the section SNOWFLAKE FILES AND RESOURCES.
| Snowflake name | ||
|---|---|---|
| Snowflake code | ||
| Diameter | mm | |
| Minimum thickness | mm | |
| Maximum thickness | mm | |
| Tendril widening distance | cells | |
| Number of levels | ||
| Resolution reduction factor |
It takes only a few seconds to generate the STL file.