Including irregular shape in an Anyrail layout.

[RichardTonkin]

In addition to Anyrail layouts which I design (Anyrail is addictive) I also have a 'layout' which contains building footprints which I can copy onto the layout under development.

Is there a way of scanning an irregular shape for inclusion in a layout? The one I want to do at the moment is the station platform from the N gauge Auhagen Laubenstein halt. I have the kit and can draw around the platform outline but there may well be other times I wish to scan outlines.

[Mike from CT]

Two things you can try that I thinmk should work:

Probably the best option is to edit your scan to make the "extra" area (the part outside of the actual object) transparent before copying the object into a rectangular surface.  The transparent parts of he rectangle wouldn't show.  I that doesn't work, you can always add points to the surface to change shape to match object's shape.  (I haven't tried this, so don't know it will work.)

Second option is to break up the scan into smaller rectangles and then build a "User object" by grouping those smaller rectangles.  That would place the object in your user objects library, which means they could be retrieved directly, rather than needing to open 2nd instance of AnyRail and copying from one instance to other.