How to go from Google Map Screenshot to Print Out on baseboard

[Fel1xp]

Looking for help as I begin replicating West Ealing station in West London. Wanting to make a full size replica across 3ft x 13 ft.

 

The problem: I want to make an accurate mock up of the station and surroundings, so ideally would make a print out of the google map satellite image, thus allowing me to pin track/see where everything goes and adjust if required. 

 

I've got a MacBook and used RailModeller Express, but its too basic/time consuming to replicate the area. 

 

Any suggestions or advice on how to move from a satellite image to a track plan which could be printed and placed on the baseboards. 

Obviously I can just do an interpretation of the area by loosely following an image, but was hoping to be able to build on top of an accurate plan. 

 

The main things I'm trying to capture are the platform shape and track plan. 

 

TIA 

 

[Ian Smeeton]

How about taking a screen shot of the image, saving as a PDF which can be printed by a local print shop to full scale size.

 

You would have to adjust the page size of the PDF to get the scale and length

 

I believe that they use printers which use rolls of paper, so that any length can be printed, rather than having numerous pages.

 

Someone can probably explain it far better than I have.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Harlequin]

Here's my method - it requires a drawing program:

• The first thing you need is something on the map of known length. You could use Google's measure distance tool but a much more direct resource is the 100m square grid on the OS maps.
• Position the map on screen showing what you want and the known length item(s). Go full screen if you have to.
• Grab the screen.
• Paste into drawing program. (Paste either into a document with a scale factor if your program supports it or a document that is the actual size of your baseboards if not.)
• In the drawing program draw lines, shapes, squares, whatever of the known length at the correct scale for your model.
• Rotate and scale the bitmap so that the known lengths on the map are aligned as exactly as you can get them to the scale lengths. Be very careful not to distort the map in any way.

You can now draw other things on top of the map and/or clip the map to a smaller size - such as the outline of the baseboards.

 

You can now print the drawing in tiles or export to PDF and print at Actual size on large format printer, or again tiled.

 

Having said all that, most real-world trackplans need to be compressed to make a usable model.

 

[tractionman]

I prefer to work from Ordnance Survey large scale plans available online from National Library of Scotland, some thoughts here on creating track plans from NLS historic OS plans might be of interest:

 

 

 

 

[Ian Smeeton]

Templot can import direct from the NLS site and scale automatically.

 

I believe that Martin has a license to import from the OS as well.

 

Check on the Templot Club forum.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Fel1xp]

Some cracking ideas here chaps. I'll have a go this week and see how it goes. 

Thanks! 

[martin_wynne]

Hi,

 

Here's West Ealing station in 1956, in Templot, with a bit of Templot track aligned over it.

 

 

Templot (free) can get this map for you, to any size, scale it to match your model scale, and print it out full-size for your baseboard. Getting a modern aerial image is not so simple, but doable. Doing it on a MacBook might be a problem.

 

Ask again on the Templot Club forum for more details.

 

Sorry Ian, not modern OS maps. Only OSM (OpenStreetMap) as in OP post.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[Fel1xp]

Thanks for everyone’s help. As a Mac user I didn’t use Templot in the end. 
I followed the idea above of taking a screenshot with the red line showing me the scale length of a 13ft wide track plan. 
I then used Adobe acrobat to scale the image up to 13ft x 3ft. This was then sent to an online printers at the cost of £50! 
 

Quality of the image is the only problem, but I was restricted as this was the only map showing the station in its current form. 
 

Pic attached of the current track plan overlay… now to workout how to lay the track accurately - do I stick the paper down? Put pins in to follow the path?