Model Railroading > AI to make Model Railroad Backdrops?

Ted's excellent work to modify the scenery in his model railroad photos got me thinking about this.

I know some outfits do custom backdrops, but I wonder if AI could helps us make the files to have them printed. Not only could we make modification to fit our model railroad, but we could start with real photos, perhaps some hustoric photos of buildings, scenery, etc. And, as we know, AI can color B&W. Of course, it might only be as good as we help direct it. AI might also take the technical tasks out of rhe aspects like scaling and distortion correction.

Victor Baird

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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/26 08:10 by wabash2800.

I would say everything you mentioned is on the way. I think the hurdle will always be the actual printing on paper in a continuous method depending on length required. You may always need a pro shop for help with that. I can see a day soon where you would be able to format and size your own pictures or clip art to make the backdrop you want, proof it, and have a service print it and ship it to you in quick fashion. So many other things are done that way now. Fracture Me is a custom photo on glass service that is super fast with a very nice product.

I don't think it will be long. Good question to post!

I think one issue is trying to get the high resolution out of AI, but it might be possible. The photos I had AI make were only around 1300 pixels across even though I submitted images of over 4000pixels. I tried to get AI to make higher resolution images, but it didn't want to.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Good points.

Victor Baird

I tried this about a year ago, and didn't have a lot of success.  However, the tech has improved considerably even since then.  So, here's my $0.02.
1. If you have existing photos you're looking to alter, AI can do a good job. You have to be very specific in your directions, including telling it what liberties it should and should not take, what to keep vs what to change, etc.
2. If you're trying to blend two photos, this might work well, too.
3. As noted by others, it only knows how to generate fairly typical aspect ratio photos (4:3 ish). 
4. I don't think AI can make a wide-and-narrow image, so you may still need help from a print shop to assemble your photos into one file for continuous printing
5, If you have photoshop you can easily "upscale" the AI generated photos to the higher resolution file needed for printing

-Alex

You might check with the folks at the Missouri Model Railroad Museum. Within the last few months the I recall the President mentioned AI was used to generate the backdrops for the large HO layout that is currently under construction. 

https://showmerails.org/

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/26 11:53 by wister6813.

Thanks for sharing wister6813. Here's a video showing the installation of backdrops. They look good as far as I can tell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqcxJJimTgY


Victor Baird


wister6813 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might check with the folks at the Missouri
> Model Railroad Museum. Within the last few months
> the I recall the President mentioned AI was used
> to generate the backdrops for the large HO layout
> that is currently under construction. 
>
> https://showmerails.org/
>
>