I’m relatively new to Model Railroading, so forgive me if this is a stupid question.
I’m using Rail Modeler on Mac to design my layout. However, when I look at options for underlayment of the track in actual construction, I see a dizzying array of solutions that involve a great deal of manual labor and not much (actually nothing) in the way of options to have a computer controlled machine (CNC) carve out the terrain. It seems to me that some 2# density Expanded Polystyrene sheets (ideally 3’x5’x6") and a machine like the Shopbot Alpha would be ideally suited to creating the terrain for my 6’x10’ N-Scale layout.
Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find anything that would allow me to turn the data from Rail Modeler (or any other rail CAD package I’ve found) into an STL file (or any other format suitable for editing and eventually feeding to a CNC machine).
Has anyone done this?
Am I crazy for thinking this is a better way?
Are there tools out there that do this and I’m simply failing to find them?
Any help appreciated.
Dropping $10-15K on a CNC machine is not something most of us can do. Plus, who wants to program instead of model? I can build scenery for very little money with any of the standard methods.
If you are planning a 6’x10’ layout, do you have planned access to the center of the layout? A 30" reach is considered a maximum and your height, reach, scenery and layout height have a lot to do with just how deep a layout you can have before you damage things while trying to reach a problem spot.
Most of us that use a 2" foam base add to it for elevations where needed and if we want a deeper cut than the thickness of the foam, glue foam additions under the base to reach the depth needed.
To me having machines do all the work would take much of the fun out of the project.
Good luck,
Richard
If you have access to a cnc router with enough throat to do stuff as big as you suggest, I’d start with a topo map of an area similar to the one you imagine you’d like to model. The contour lines would be a good reference point, but you’d probably also have to use a solids based modeling program, like Mastercam or some such. There’s some work being done using triangles and fractals to create “virtual” landscape for video games. Once you worked up a programming scheme it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt it to many types of topography. You probably couldn’t do undercuts without 5 axis capability however. Interesting.
Lou