Printing streets in N scale

[jakke01]

Good evening all,

 

While browsing the excellent www.nproject.org site I stumbled across this : http://www.nproject.org/nl/download/straten.zip

You can download streets (straight and bends), pavements, etc in both N and HO scale - for free !! 

 

I've tried it on my layout to get an idea what my streets would look like and I have to say it's pretty good.

 

Next step will be to print this out on A4 size photo paper (to get some more thickness) and use it for real.

 

Unfortunately the site is in Dutch/German only (and full of other useful tips and tricks) so if you want something translated just let me know !!

 

Now if only someone could make a japanese version of this ..........

 

Enjoy  :icon_santa:

 

Jan

[cteno4]

Nice. Looks like there might be some interesting technique items that are universal! Have to dig around with the translator.

 

You can easily create Japanese streets like this with a simple drawing program. It's fun as you can detail it how you want and even add in gutter drains, man hole covers, and even the oil and tire marks if you want to go in with a painting/touch up program. Easy to also weather physically with some weathering powders after your street is down. If you inkjet print onto some textured surface art/drawing paper you can also get a little surface texture easily and also use a gesture pattern for your road printing. Although at n scale you really don't see this at all from more than a few inches away, so it's mainly the color of your road material you need to get and the paper surface can give you a little illusion of texture. You won't get this with a laser printer as its toner covers the surface and flattens everything.

 

Kato, greenmax, and pro hobby use to sell some road markings and lines decal and sticker sets, but I don't think any of those are available anymore.

 

Some start by scanning the kato diotown street sections and modifying as needed. I just did my ttrak streetcar streets starting from scratch and was pretty easy. For the few Japanese character road markings I just pasted the characters into photoshop to create the bitmap for them. Google map satellite view is also a great aid to figure out what sort of markings to do, lines, xwalks, etc.

 

mardon here on the forum has done some nice printed streets based off the diotown streets.

 

Printed streets are also a great way to plan your neighborhood and also what you want the final markings to be. Just print out ideas, tape them down to see what it looks like, revise, repeat! Fast and easy!

 

I bet someone has done this in Japan and created PDFs, but no one has just stumbled across them yet!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Kato, greenmax, and pro hobby use to sell some road markings and lines decal and sticker sets, but I don't think any of those are available anymore.

 

TGW make these:

 

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sakatsu/126500121048/

 

I also picked up some at JAM from a small model shop whose name I forget.

[katoftw]

hobby search still has the TGW ones in white and yellow.

[cteno4]

Forgot about the the, knew there was one more.

 

Although not really necessary if you print your roadways!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff