Welcome to the future of computer aided model building. This list is for anyone that ever thought of blending model building and cad/vector.

Vector or cad is useful in making printed templates to make models that you would never find commercially. You can print on sheet styrene, cut, and glue, or use available circuit board home etching gear to make your own etched brass models. Becoming more common and affordable are 3d scanners and milling engravers that will make editable cads while making parts from the drawing/scans.

We're all learning some part of this. Here is where questions and answers will find each other. An on-going project is to build a freely available public library of model cad elements to make model equipment design and construction as easy as p-d train layout design has been.

The moderator is gathering a twin 3d scan-mill set-up, has been making his own decals from a vector program, is moving into etched brass 'kits' via cad and vector, does castings, and will be tieing all of this together to make models that he is tired of waiting for the manufacturers to produce.