First let me say that I take my hat off to you sir. I am amazed at how people acquire the talent, skill, and expertise to work out these computer models, renderings, and therest. My only questionsconcern the height of thedecks, and your reference to a 3D printer.
I'm entirely self taught, having started with making levels for the PC game Quake back in the 90's. It's all trial and error, but the more you do it, the more you get used to the concepts involved in 3D modelling. Anyone can do it, and I'd highly recommend playing with Sketchup because you'll be making models before you know it. I'm actually teaching it to home schooled kids now
You mentioned 2.43 meters as your purposed deck height, and a deck lass than a foot thick. Now I know that in TOS the sets were built on soundstages and thus had to make allowances for lights and boom mics etc... this was why the ceilings, or rather the lack of them, (I can't remember actually ever seeing one) the point is that most of the decks, corridors, and compartments looked to be ten foot plus in height, and at least six to seven foot wide. So would you say that there were less decks in the original ship, and more added to the refit?
I've taken the deck height from the corridor sets, which were continually used and redressed from TMP through TNG and Voyager etc. They are 8 feet height and 8 feet wide, so I've used the 8' height as being the general height for all the decks in the saucer (the decks in the engineering hull are taller). In the TOS movies you see plenty of ceiling shots, like the Corridors, Sickbay and Kirk's quarters etc, and they're all 8' high.
Given that the original Enterprise was actually slightly smaller than the refit, I think yes absolutely there has to have been less decks. The term Refit doesn't really justify how little of the original Enterprise remains. It's essentially just a small percentage of the original saucer left, with everything else being entirely new. Once I'm finished with the 3D model I'm going to try and make a Refit animation just like the scene from Star Trek Beyond where we see the new Enterprise being built.
Some other minor points, that confused me was whether that outer ring of the saucer was intended as an access crawl-space for plumbing, water storage and non critical storage, sensors, and a deflector ring coil that generated the main shildes etc... And another point. Why the blody hell did the ventral hull had that beveled indention in it. It seems that all it did was to break up the semattry of the saucers curviture. It almost makes one think the outermost leading edge of the saucer was some promenade meant only to be accessed where the view ports were.
The outer rim of the saucer is slightly thicker than two full decks, and the presence of two rows of windows does suggest that it was intended to be more than just crawl space. I'm leaning more towards not having two decks though, and instead having taller rooms like the rec deck around the edge. After you take the rec deck, impulse engineering, the various lounges, a gym, the main airlock, and the RCS thruster hardware into account... there's barely any space left for rooms anyway.
I share your thoughts on the concave nature of the lower saucer hull, it does seem like a huge waste of space because without it you could have two full decks all the way across the saucer. However, if I use that space for the EPS batteries/capacitors it actually means this critical (and explosive) hardware is tucked away out of direct line of sight. So in combat your main batteries are not going to get hit directly unless your enemy manages to get directly beneath you. From that perspective, the design becomes a tactical one.
The other point was the decks thickness. Your purposed measurment was 20 centimeters. That seems barely enough space for the ribs of the internal skeletal structure, and the deck and overhead plating. And this doesn’t' begin to cover the need for piping, crawlspace for maintenence access etc...
Since my original design I have now increased this space to 40cm (1' 3") above and below every deck, so you've got nearly half a metre for running cables and pipes etc. 20cm was too skinny, but going over 40cm meant that things started to not fit, so I settled on the 40cm figure.
Finally, you mentioned building this 3D model with a 3D printer in mind. So are you going to once completed, run it through a printer and make an actual physical model of the ship. I can barely wrap my mind around the depth of detail it will involve. I envy you your ability to understand these technologies and CG programs that turn drawings into two dimensional artwork. Best of luck in your future endeavours. I will keep up on your progress of this project.
Thanks Very Kindly
templerman aka William York
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This project started out as being a giant 3D printed jigsaw puzzle, and I'm still building it with that in mind, but for now I'm focusing on the VR implementation because walking around it 'for real' is an incredible experience. If you have never experienced proper VR before (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift), it's not something that can be explained in words. All I can say is that it's like you're really there, you can physically walk down every corridor and reach out and touch things with your own virtual hands. It's the closest you're ever going to get to being on the actual Enterprise
