Great Articale

Hope someone would pick this up and generate random scene backgrounds to order.  This outstanding idea would provide different background that would work to scale and location of the scene. outstanding layout.

Great Idea

I watched the video but haven't read the article yet.  This is a great idea.

Don't forget though, programs like PT gui will work on your own photographs.  If you're lucky enough to be able to physically be at the site when the light is just perfect and you know how to use your camera to it's best advantage you'll probably end up up with something that is almost as good as the computer generated stuff.  

Really interesting back drop article.

It was a great read and pretty stunning results. Now am looking for similar input sources for Oz... However, for anyone considering this approach - and 42 years in computing is usually little help in my loved hobby -   the comment about a "fast computer" is sound, but the guts of it is the video card.

Now a club, or  operating group or bunch of friends would need to do this to justify the cost, but a fast video card would speed up rendering enormously. I have worked with a gaming/graphic design school, to improve their render times, so know how much it helps. As an example, reduced a 40 hour rendering of a 30 sec animation to less than 2 hours by going from a standard $1500 "Dell" to a custom built i7 with 32GB's ram (its cheap these days) and a commercial type video card.

Either a high end "gaming card" or even a low to mid range "commercial" card (AKA Nvidia Quattro range, as an example) is what the pro's use. Like most things, balance is important - a $1,000 card will not work well in a $500 computer! And yes, they are available from most computer shops, but you will probably have to order in a commercial card.

The trick is in current cards,  the processor on the card, shares the load with the CPU (processor) in your PC (plus a bunch of techno babble... LOL)

Given the work involved in this, it seems the investment (spread amongst a number of people) would be well repaid. Although the "discussions" as to who gets the card will be healthy - I don't recommend swapping it around on a regular basis.

Interesting article. Due to

Interesting article. Due to the time equipment etc involved I do not know that it will be of use to me from the stand point of actually doing all that to make my own backdrops.

I do see where it could have a huge impact on the hobby should any of the commercial back drop printers decide to make use of it. The pay off on the investment for them is likely to happen very quickly. The cost reduction in back drops needed to be stocked would be great. The ability to add standard items to some scene specific areas sounds like it could be a huge plus.

Imagine that you want the view on your back drop to be what would be seen when looking from the river toward the shore as it passes by a city like Moundsville WV. There are likely no backdrops of this location in existence. So with the mapping software they can create the land forms and with photos of some key structures added it will become identifiable. Generic trees and other details added it will be a very realistic background for a specific location.

The commercial folks likely have lots of high quality images ready or nearly ready to be combined into something like this and will now be able to store a great many locations in their computer. With the ability to add images from bygone eras they maybe able to give us backdrops of things we can no longer photograph.

Sounds like an exciting development. It may offer those of us wanting to model scenes more than 50 years old a way to do that.

Rob in Texas

Adding To Rob's Idea...

Imagine if you will, a completely custom backdrop, where the terrain data is taken from DEM, and rendered. Then there's the conversation with the company about what structures to add, and where, assuming you don't have the software, or want to take on the learning curve of Photoshop type applications. If you do have the image software, and are comfortable using it, the basic backdrop would be all you'd need.

You could then either hunt down a place to print the backdrop yourself, or have the backdrop supplier have it done for you. Because it's data, it can be sent back and forth as many times as needed, to get exactly what you want.

While I think this is a fantastic tool for creating photo realistic backdrops, the software and process of creating the backdrop may be beyond the average modeler. Still, those who love to be able to say "I did that!" are going to take the time to learn how this works, and I can even see a Yahoo type group started just for model railroaders, to help each other create some truly magnificent vistas.

This is a fantastic idea. As

Nicely Done

I am impressed with what you have done to get realistic backdrop. I understand how hard it is to get these images as  I am going to school to be a Agricultural GPS/GIS Specialist. I have just finished a course on digital imagery where part of it was making 3-D maps using USGS DEMs that we put into mapping software. The software that I use is ESRI it is designed for map making that is geo-referenced and can be printed the same way. The rendering process on that took as long as two days. Another tool that is helpful and more accurate for getting elevation maps is Lidar imagery. If anyone has an questions about this I can answer them for you at well.     Thanks Steven                          

Perfect timing!

I'm so impressed when someone does pioneering work like this and takes the time and effort to share what they've done. Together the article and the video are just enough to really get a sense for this process. Many thanks.

I'm working on an around-the-room shelf layout for the middle school math classroom that I teach in. Our school is a block from the old Sacramento Northern right-of-way through Oakland and I've been thinking about how the kids could render the background hills that are right outside our windows, but take them back 100 years when they weren't covered with houses. I've been doing something similar with DEM data to create the historical landscape in Trainz to simulate the old line, but hadn't figured out a suitable way to use that data to create a backdrop for our L-girder and Homosote version. 

Now I know what to do!

Jeff

Any chance..

...of doing a follow up article on using software to manipulate actual photos for creating a backdrop, like using Photoshop?!

Ken L.

I agree with Robs sentiments.

Interesting article indeed. Due to the time involved and the speed of the computer you need. I know I wouldnt be able to find the modeling time just to put towards just creating the backdrop. I need a new computer anyways so the investment on a new machine doesnt bother me, even if it speeds up the process, I just dont have that kind of time for modeling just to do it. Ill bet once you get the hang of it, its quite a fun process to see it being created though. I still enjoyed reading it. 

best companies for printing photo backdrops

Great article Bill.  It was mentioned to use Giclee printing.  What on-line companies have people used with good results?  I am ready to print a custom photo backdrop, but I am not sure of where to get the best value.

Best Regards,

John 

A truly great article

I would like to see more articles like this from Bill going into more detail of how to process the whole project.  I would also like to know what Bill had to pay to have the backdrops printed out.

Great work

Bill,

     Great article!! I have bought the software and starting the process of learning how to do it and I would love to see more on how this is done. I have gone through the YouTube videos and very helpful. This is the type of article I like to see a model railroading magazines new cutting ideas. I would like to see another article on this subject.  This time more about how to, or if not an article maybe a blog with some of the ideas and processes.

   This is what makes model railroading great the sharing of ideas among the modelers yes not everyone's could do it but this does make everyone think about ideas.

Great story. I downloaded the

Thanks for all the comments!

I just stumbled upon this chain just now so sorry for not responding sooner. Thank you for all of the positive comments. I see it may have inspired some of you to give it a try. With the Terragen demo, you can give it a whirl with no investment. I am not sure if it came across strong enough in the article but I think one can get pretty darn good results much quicker than  I did. Stop looking at the examples of photographic quality results the experts can achieve. Start by trying to painting your backdrop, and if your skills are like mine, you will see how awful that is, and then compare it to what what you can achieve with simple Terragen models. I got very hung up trying to get that photographic quality (and still did not get there) but spent a lot of time trying.

Today I would look at using the cloud service for the rendering vs investing in beefy hardware. I am facing the same issue at work as an IT mgr. and I see no reason to own the hardware when you can rent it in the cloud for the timeframe you need it. They were just not available when I did my work.

Printing was $200 for two images (17') on the 36" roll. The paper is about $100 for a roll which I think had 100' of paper on it. I shopped a number of online printers but found a local outfit that specialized in Giclee art quality. There are so many folks in the business now that do banners but do not have color management as part their process. Find a company that does art reproductions and they should be able to do a good job.

Next project is 3D printing. I already completed a brick building and it turned out pretty well. Next is a steel gallows turntable. Have to learn 3D CAD modeling for that.

Let me know if I can help with Terragen. It is something you forget quickly if you do not use it regularly but I will try.

Bill

http://www.greatnorthernfan.com