Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans

[Shaw]

Back in October when I was attempting to figure out what Jefferies' original plans for the Enterprise model might have looked like back in 1964, I started thinking about what the internal arrangement might have looked like. And after participating in a thread in the TOS section on the placement of engineering, I figured I would share what small amounts of progress I've made in this area.

I (like most trek fans) had seen these drawings for years, and I had dismissed the cross-section as having been drawn in a rush and assumed that the Joseph deck placement was actually correct. But when I compared this cross-section with Jefferies' Phase II cross-section (here) I realized that the Jefferies deck placements were actually well planned.

So in addition to the model construction plans, I also used additional Jefferies' information to apply deck heights and scaled the original set plans for a number of rooms to those drawings. These two images represent about as far as I got with my brainstorming before I put the project on hold last fall.

[Cary L. Brown]

Hi David,

Looking at this, it would APPEAR that you're taking some of the set diagrams (from the stage layouts) and using those to place them into the ship interior. Is that correct?

Also... it would appear that you're using the "versus the carrier" diagram as the scaling reference instead of EITHER of the two most accepted lengths (947 or 1080 feet). It's intriguing to note that, give what you've shown so far, the bridge and the bridge turbolift DO seem to fit into the model without any of the "gymnastics" folks around here sometimes go through. SO... what's the length you're working from as of now?

[USS Jack Riley]

Shaw - As luck would have it, I happened across my old Star Trek guide last night and went though the drawings. I found one similar to yours (the overview of the Starship and the WWII era carrier). Somewhere on the page is a scale meter that goes up to 200 feet.

There was also a side by side comparison of the Enterprise and a Klingon D-7 with the same scale meter (I know that is the wrong term, but it was basically 1 inch = 200 feet).

Let me know if you need the pics, and I will send them to you. Or I can get of my lazy backside and open up a digital photo account and post them here directly.

[Sean_McCormick]

None of the drawings show the siluette of the WW2 Carrier CV-6 Enterprise (246.9 meters overall length). They all show the much larger nuclear vessel CVN-65 Enterprise (341.3 meters overall length).

[edit, added dimensions]

[USS Jack Riley]

Really? I only scanned them quickly, but thought I saw CVA, not CVN. Oh well. Either way, if you want the pics, let me know.

[Shaw]

Cary L. Brown said:
Looking at this, it would APPEAR that you're taking some of the set diagrams (from the stage layouts) and using those to place them into the ship interior. Is that correct?

Also... it would appear that you're using the "versus the carrier" diagram as the scaling reference instead of EITHER of the two most accepted lengths (947 or 1080 feet). It's intriguing to note that, give what you've shown so far, the bridge and the bridge turbolift DO seem to fit into the model without any of the "gymnastics" folks around here sometimes go through. SO... what's the length you're working from as of now?

What I did was I started with the plans at 33.75 inches and scaled them up to 947 feet (at 1 foot = 3 pixels for these test fits), I then went to this page on the Carrier Enterprise to get info on that ship (and my diagram is basically a tracing of the one on that page). It said that the carrier was currently 1,101 feet, so I scaled my tracing to that length. And yeah, it turns out remarkably similar to the Jefferies comparison diagram (though I have everything pointing the other direction).

I have set plans for a number of the shows (including some of the redressed set layouts), and cropped out the individual rooms and corridors and scaled them to the same 1 foot = 3 pixels of the other diagrams.

I've actually thought about just providing the basic deck outlines, all of the needed (and known) types of rooms to the same scale on another sheet, and then let people print everything out, cut out the rooms and fit them into the deck outlines however they see fit... and I may still do that, just for people who would find that sort of thing fun to try (sort of the ultimate TOS puzzle ).

What was most amazing to me when doing this was the elevation views of the briefing room, officer's quarters and corridor from the set plans actually fit with how Jefferies had spaced the decks out. On set, the ceiling heights are 10 feet... which is way more than will fit in the Joseph plans. But they fit nicely here, which I'm thinking must be more than just coincidence.

There are a lot of areas that I just don't have any good references on, so rather than make stuff up, I'll just leave those spaces open. Who knows, maybe someone else will come around with that info and can fill in the blanks.

The other thing to note is that I am making use of my conjectural Jefferies' construction plans for the model rather than plans of either actual model as built. My guess is that Jefferies would have been more likely to use copies of the drawings given to Richard Datin rather than try to figure out how the final models differed from what he had originally put to paper.

USS Jack Riley said:
Let me know if you need the pics, and I will send them to you. Or I can get of my lazy backside and open up a digital photo account and post them here directly.

That sounds great! But don't rush on this because of me, I most likely won't be able to invest any amount of quality time on this until April or so.

But thanks a ton for the offer! :thumbsup:

[therealfoxbat]

I don't know if this will help, but in the DS9 episode "Trials And Tribble-ations" they actually came out and said the Constitution class has 21 decks...

[Cary L. Brown]

therealfoxbat said:I don't know if this will help, but in the DS9 episode "Trials And Tribble-ations" they actually came out and said the Constitution class has 21 decks...

That's not NECESSARILY a "show stopper" when doing something like this.

My perspective tends to be that a "deck" must be a contiguous, uninterrupted area. In my case, I often will have a "Deck14A" and a "Deck14B" to represent two areas on the same level but in entirely unjoined areas in that particular cross-section.

The question becomes... are those "two subsections of one deck" or are they two distinct decks? Honestly, I'd be more inclined to accept them as two distinct decks... I did it the way I've done it largely due to my desire to make my ships fit with established Trek Canon (tm).

That said... we've also seen ships described as having decks identified by numbers, or at other times the same ship decks are identified by letters. (For instance, the bridge is on Deck 1, but the two decks below that are called "B deck" and "C deck" more often than they're called "Deck Two" and "Deck 3.")

SO... another approach might be to have, for instance, the primary hull be by deck numbers and the secondary hull by deck LETTERS... thus giving you an even more clear manner of identifying which part of the ship you're talking about.

It's worth noting that David's drawing has 19 levels... but that there are two more levels in the primary hull which are disconnected from their "matching" levels in the secondary hull/dorsal, so technically this ship DOES have 21 decks as he's drawn it.

As Obi-wan would say... "From a certain point of view..."

[Sean_McCormick]

Regarding the carriers designation

U.S.S. Enterprise was planned as CVA, launched as CVAN-65 (CVA means attack carrier, the N for nuclear powered was added in '59 while the ship was build), in '75 the CVA and CVS (Anti submarine warfare carrier) were reclassified as CV (carrier) with Enterprise, Nimitz and Eisenhower of course keeping the N.

[edit, clarified one point]

[Captain Robert April]

USS Jack Riley said:
Shaw - As luck would have it, I happened across my old Star Trek guide last night and went though the drawings. I found one similar to yours (the overview of the Starship and the WWII era carrier). Somewhere on the page is a scale meter that goes up to 200 feet.

There was also a side by side comparison of the Enterprise and a Klingon D-7 with the same scale meter (I know that is the wrong term, but it was basically 1 inch = 200 feet).

Let me know if you need the pics, and I will send them to you. Or I can get of my lazy backside and open up a digital photo account and post them here directly.

Take another look.

http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars...er-sheet-2.jpg

That ain't the WWII carrier.

[Cary L. Brown]

Shaw said:

What I did was I started with the plans at 33.75 inches and scaled them up to 947 feet (at 1 foot = 3 pixels for these test fits), I then went to this page on the Carrier Enterprise to get info on that ship (and my diagram is basically a tracing of the one on that page). It said that the carrier was currently 1,101 feet, so I scaled my tracing to that length. And yeah, it turns out remarkably similar to the Jefferies comparison diagram (though I have everything pointing the other direction).

Which just support what I've always said... albeit that Jeffries' design work was at a "sketch" level moreso than a "fully realized design" level (after all, he wasn't being paid to figure out where individual frame members were on the ship, was he???), he did put a lot of thought into the design and wanted it to "fit together" in his own mind if nothing else. The guy WAS an outstanding designer and a very technically-minded fellow (with Andrew Probert being someone I respect just as much, and for the same reasons). These two guys have given us the best design work for Trek we've had so far (though I've never, STYLISTICALLY, cared much for the 1701-D).

I have set plans for a number of the shows (including some of the redressed set layouts), and cropped out the individual rooms and corridors and scaled them to the same 1 foot = 3 pixels of the other diagrams.

I've actually thought about just providing the basic deck outlines, all of the needed (and known) types of rooms to the same scale on another sheet, and then let people print everything out, cut out the rooms and fit them into the deck outlines however they see fit... and I may still do that, just for people who would find that sort of thing fun to try (sort of the ultimate TOS puzzle ).

IF you choose to go that way, I'd ask that you consider doing something slightly different.

Produce the "kit" in the form of Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw vector-based files. In the file, provide the "puzzle pieces" as groups of elements which can be replicated, copied, rotated, and moved IN THE BASE FILE. That way, you get the benefit, plus the ability to be much more precise, plus the ability to make edited copies of rooms where and when appropriate, PLUS (the biggest argument for ME) the benefit of not having to cover up my kitchen floor with hundreds of tiny little scraps of paper and having to breath glue fumes for a days!

What was most amazing to me when doing this was the elevation views of the briefing room, officer's quarters and corridor from the set plans actually fit with how Jefferies had spaced the decks out. On set, the ceiling heights are 10 feet... which is way more than will fit in the Joseph plans. But they fit nicely here, which I'm thinking must be more than just coincidence.

Yep, the guy had thought things through to a reasonable degree... my description of it as "sketches" is no denigration to his quality of work.

There are a lot of areas that I just don't have any good references on, so rather than make stuff up, I'll just leave those spaces open. Who knows, maybe someone else will come around with that info and can fill in the blanks.

The other thing to note is that I am making use of my conjectural Jefferies' construction plans for the model rather than plans of either actual model as built. My guess is that Jefferies would have been more likely to use copies of the drawings given to Richard Datin rather than try to figure out how the final models differed from what he had originally put to paper.

Hmmm... the only dubious decision you've made (IMHO). As far as I'm concerned, the "real" ship is the one seen on-screen. Anything else might represent a different ship, but it cannot be "The Enterprise" in my mind.

Then again, I'm old and crotchety and set in my ways!

[Praetor]

Shaw, as with everyone else's (including my own) attempts at defining the interiors of the good ole 1701, I am very interested in your effort, and I think you may be onto something with your scaling and methods. Futhermore, if you were to produce a vector file for placing the various areas within the ship, I know that I would love taking a go at it.

I can't wait to see the progress!

[Shaw]

Cary L. Brown said:
Produce the "kit" in the form of Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw vector-based files. In the file, provide the "puzzle pieces" as groups of elements which can be replicated, copied, rotated, and moved IN THE BASE FILE. That way, you get the benefit, plus the ability to be much more precise, plus the ability to make edited copies of rooms where and when appropriate, PLUS (the biggest argument for ME) the benefit of not having to cover up my kitchen floor with hundreds of tiny little scraps of paper and having to breath glue fumes for a days!

• -and-

Praetor said:
Shaw, as with everyone else's (including my own) attempts at defining the interiors of the good ole 1701, I am very interested in your effort, and I think you may be onto something with your scaling and methods. Futhermore, if you were to produce a vector file for placing the various areas within the ship, I know that I would love taking a go at it.

Well, I guess I had under estimated the level of interest in a do it yourself version.

I was planning on redrawing all the set plans anyways, so it wouldn't be all that hard to turn each of the rooms into an EPS, though (like I said before) I'm not planning on adding extra stuff to those bits of info. Basically this means that two wall or three wall sets will only have those walls, I'll leave it to the various artist to do the placement of walls not originally there.

I could then do an Illustrator document with each of the deck outlines as a drawing layer. If anyone knows what the most compatible version of an Illustrator document would be for importing into other non-Adobe vector apps, I would be happy to create the deck outline document in that version of Illustrator (my oldest copy is version 6, though I don't recall using layers before version 7... not that I use Illustrator much anyways). It would be nice if people using CoralDRAW or Freehand or some other vector app would have the same opportunity to play around like this.

Cary L. Brown said:
Hmmm... the only dubious decision you've made (IMHO). As far as I'm concerned, the "real" ship is the one seen on-screen. Anything else might represent a different ship, but it cannot be "The Enterprise" in my mind.

Then again, I'm old and crotchety and set in my ways!

The other reason for using the conjectural Jefferies plans was that I haven't completely drawn up the 11 foot model on my own just yet. I have started on data collection and analysis (much like I had for the 33 inch model), but haven't felt the same drive to spend time on that project as their are already really good plans for that model out there.

Additionally, my plans were going to be the model as is (or as was, as the case may be). That is to say, if it was missing from the original model, it would be missing from these plans. So all the symmetry short cuts that were made on the model would be documented in the details of my set of plans. I guess that wouldn't be all that different from presenting two and three wall sets in their original states, so I could just leave the symmetry stuff up in the air too.

But for my modest attempt, I wouldn't worry too much about the differences from the conjectural Jefferies plans and those of the 11 foot model. Below is a comparison of the curves of my conjectural Jefferies plans, Casimiro's 11 foot pilot plans and my 33 inch plans... and the 11 foot model seemed to followed Jefferies plans pretty closely.

Cary L. Brown said:
Yep, the guy had thought things through to a reasonable degree... my description of it as "sketches" is no denigration to his quality of work.

I think that is why this is so interesting to me... when thinking about it, the amount of time that Jefferies had in preproduction of The Cage, the period between The Cage and WNMHGB, and the period between WNMHGB and the beginning of actual filming of season one, that is a lot of time to mull over some of the details of the Enterprise above and beyond what would have been required (or expected) for a weekly television show. While I don't think he filled in every space within the Enterprise, I'd be willing to bet that he put some extra work in on the logical assembly of what was asked for by the producers within those constraints.

So yeah, I'm of a similar option as some other members here that there is more beyond what was used (or needed) for production lurking in Jefferies' designs, and that the Enterprise was a labor of love. I could totally see him using additional time in the beginning of the series to think about more than what was asked of him on this.

Cary L. Brown said:
Which just support what I've always said... albeit that Jeffries' design work was at a "sketch" level moreso than a "fully realized design" level (after all, he wasn't being paid to figure out where individual frame members were on the ship, was he???), he did put a lot of thought into the design and wanted it to "fit together" in his own mind if nothing else. The guy WAS an outstanding designer and a very technically-minded fellow (with Andrew Probert being someone I respect just as much, and for the same reasons). These two guys have given us the best design work for Trek we've had so far (though I've never, STYLISTICALLY, cared much for the 1701-D).

Yeah... exactly. :thumbsup:

This is a much closer view of a section of the test cross-section, which also includes MGagen's diagram of engineering looking aft (as he has done outstanding work at marrying set and model elements to scale with each other). It was seeing these different elements together that made me realize that these deck levels were not only not a rushed drawing for the writer's guide, but a sense of sadness at what was most likely lost in the intervening years. Because to get stuff to match this well, you have to figure that he most likely drew out a ton of sketches and figures, all of which have most likely been lost to the passage of time.

[Captain Robert April]

Also, keep in mind that the original artwork is rather small. The whole thing fits on a piece of standard typing paper.

Not much room for a lot of detail. And for the requirements of the drawing, not a lot really needed.

[Shaw]

See, that was why I would never have considered that illustration as a primary source (that, and the fact that there isn't a way to make accurate scales for it). That is why I had dismissed it for nearly 40 years.

No, instead I used the Phase II cross-section as my primary source for deck heights, and then use the writer's guide illustration to corroborate that information. What struck me as so odd was that if there wasn't any real fixed information on the deck heights of the Enterprise, and the Joseph plans were the ones all the fans were using, then why are the heights between a small drawing for the writers in the 60s matching up with highly detailed drawings of the Phase II Enterprise in 1977?

What I was forced to conclude was that while the writer's guide drawing may not be the best source for this information, it does confirm that Jefferies had worked it out by the time that he drew that picture and that he stuck with those deck height specifications for more than 10 years and even at a time when he was willing to make other alterations to the Enterprise (like the diameter of the primary hull).

It seems to me that the deck heights of the Phase II plans working with the set heights of TOS and lining up quite nicely with a non-detailed drawing for some writers is beyond coincidence.