How to design buildings for model railroad

[vtrailway]

I'm new to this board and 3D printing. I'm looking to take pictures of local buildings and turn them into scale models for a model railroad I've been working on. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[fred_dot_u]

If you take sufficient quantity of photos from all angles, you can use photogrammetry to create a mesh and an exported .OBJ file from which to create your models. Ideally, you'll have a specific reference in the images, such as a doorway or window frame of known dimensions from which to scale the creation. One of the photogrammetry programs I've used created a model that was one one-hundredth of the actual size and had to be scaled up by a factor of one hundred to match size. Typically, the meshes created are very high triangle count, which means that scaling up rarely causes problem with loss of detail. If you are able to accomplish your objective, consider to post photos of your results for others to enjoy.

[OG56]

I always encourage folks to learn 3d modeling (at least the basics). The two main techniques are CAD and polygonal modeling (art focused). Fusion 360 (CAD) is free for hobby use and Blender 3d (polygonal) is free open source. With photogrammetry is still want to have a little 3d modeling background to clean up any artifacts in the generated model.