Hi, This has been bugging me for quite some time now. I want to make a 3D model of the TMP/STII/STIII style bridge but I have been unable to find decent measurements for it. I have found only one bridge floor plan with any sort of measurement scale and it places the diameter of the bridge at about 31 feet. Does anyone know any more accurate measurements?
That sounds about right. Get some screen grabs from the DVD of people standing at the various stations. Resize one of the grabs to a known scale estimating that a human is approximately 72" tall. Then scale your blueprints to match the size of the station and see where that puts the size of the rest of the floorplan.
Try Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. Shane Johnson was allowed set access when he made the book, so I'm sure his drawings are pretty accurate.
I love "Mr. Scott's Guide" and its first-rate drawings, but even Johnson couldn't resolve some design riddles (such as how to fit in the two photorp bays indicated in TWOK). I agree with Okuda's comment in the intro to the 1701D blueprints- "the Enterprise is not that photographic miniature, is not those sets, but rather it's a creature that lives...in the minds of the viewers." So perhaps there can never be just one answer as to its scale. That being said...David Kimble's production blueprints show the bridge dome as 1/8 the width of the saucer, and Johnson's bridge drawing indicates the wall-to-wall diameter is nearly 3/4 of the dome (and half that for the 'pit' railing). So given the traditional ship length & width of 1000x465ft, that works out to about a 40ft-wide room. And that fits with the scale on Johnson's drawing, which indicates a 20ft wide railing and about a 38ft wide room. Of course, as the old pirate said, the 1000ft length is more what you'd call a 'guideline'...
Now it's bugging me too. Need to revise my statement... It's the outer bridge module that's 1/8 as wide as the ship (looks like a dome from the front), and the 'dome' exterior is about 3/4 of that (at least 43ft, based on the 1000ft length). SJ's interior width is closer to 36ft, so there could be a substantial margin for the bridge walls.
I did an estimation a while ago based on the Enterprise Flight Manual drawings and that came up with about 36' across, too. That seems like a nice easy number so I think I'll go with that.
What you (and CTM) would need is this picture: Unfortunally it is resized by Photobucket, fortunally I did upload the big picture here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/qzbwka
That's funny, I had just finished reading CTM's thread and got linked back to my own :P Thanks for the drawing, wjaspers. It would seem to support the interior of the bridge being about 36' in diameter. Just roughly judging from the Strategic Design blueprints this looks like it could fit into the exterior, though it may be a little tight.