Help with 1701-D drawings?

[circusdog]

So, taking Cary's admonitions to heart, I cropped the saucer section from the top view and tried to resolve some of the shapes.

I passed a line through the P/S formation lights and compared it to vertical. It is off by 0.17 degrees (intetrestingly, this line passes through the center of the P/S docking elevators, which does not agree with a majority of the deck plans I have been working on).

I passed a line through the forward "formation light" in front of Capt. Picard's quarters and a box shape on the "fantail" just above the main impulse engine. That line is off by 0.20 degrees from horizontal.

The two lines are 90.03 degrees from each other. I would have hoped/expected them to be at right angles. At least it agrees mathematically with the other angles (.2 - .17 = .03).

I centered an ellipse over the bridge dome and ran a line from the same forward "formation light", and that line measures 0.25 degrees from horizontal. That puts the bridge off-center from the main saucer by a significant amount. This is where my doubts/concerns come in. Esthetically, I want the bridge to be centered horizontally. It is fairly obvious that the bridge is meant to be set back towards the aft from center, but not obvious as to being offset towards port as well.

 

[Forbin]

no all-powerful image on videotape controls my life.

I wish I could say the same - there's this bit of video my wife's lawyer has that shows...


Oh, that's not what we're talking about.

 

[circusdog]

Here is a picture of all the ellipse centers for the top view of the saucer:

The green cross is the center derived from passing lines through the formation lights and the box on the fantail after rotating the image and moving it to the sketch origin.

Here is a closer look (reminds me of a shooting range target on a bad day):

 

[publiusr]

Sadly one of the few physical representations that seemed to get the suacer profile and the impulse right was the defunct Hot Wheels limited issue big box set with a game that seemed to be available at Costco and few other places.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well, that's reality for you... so, just do a weighted-average along X and Y and use those to establish the idealized center. You'll then have to shift details to line up with your idealized center, but that's really pretty trivial.

To be blunt, the scatter we see here is a lot less severe than I was expecting to see. It's actually remarkably clean, compared to the sort of results I've seen when doing "real world" engineering studies of real craft.

Just think of it as warpage to the hull that's happened during the various fights that the Enterprise has been through.

Here is a picture of all the ellipse centers for the top view of the saucer:

The green cross is the center derived from passing lines through the formation lights and the box on the fantail after rotating the image and moving it to the sketch origin.

Here is a closer look (reminds me of a shooting range target on a bad day):

 

[circusdog]

Well, that's reality for you

Bwahahaha!

the scatter we see here is a lot less severe than I was expecting to see. It's actually remarkably clean, compared to the sort of results I've seen when doing "real world" engineering studies of real craft.

Not as bad as Worf leaving the Yamato's bridge through one exit only to arrive on the other side (WSHL) I suppose.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

In-universe, what if the four-footer look was some sort of camera distortion, caused by a 2366 retrofit to one of the various fields surrounding the ship? It would explain how the distortion could disappear instantaneously during saucer separation (when the six-footer was used again), or disappear halfway when the compromise CG model was used in the TNG: "Pegasus"-based segment of ENT: "These are the Voyages". Also, a lot of the interior okudagrams remained unchanged, presumably because the physical structure didn't change, although some okudagrams may have been needed to depict the distorted look. Fortunately, the crashed saucer was based on the six-footer, and we can safely assume that everything except (perhaps) the SIF would've been switched off = no distortion at all.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

In-universe, what if the four-footer look was some sort of camera distortion, caused by a 2366 retrofit to one of the various fields surrounding the ship? It would explain how the distortion could disappear instantaneously during saucer separation (when the six-footer was used again), or disappear halfway when the compromise CG model was used in the TNG: "Pegasus"-based segment of ENT: "These are the Voyages". Also, a lot of the interior okudagrams remained unchanged, presumably because the physical structure didn't change, although some okudagrams may have been needed to depict the distorted look. Fortunately, the crashed saucer was based on the six-footer, and we can safely assume that everything except (perhaps) the SIF would've been switched off = no distortion at all.

Whle that's not a terrible attempt to "fix" the discontinuity between the two models... to me it feels like "desperation." (No offense intended!)

As far as I'm concerned, the "real" ship isn't exactly identical to either model. The overall shapes are more like the 6-foot version, with only one minor difference (the saucer rim, which on the 6-footer cannot accomodate "Ten Forward" at all). The panel detailing is like NEITHER, frankly, since both are detailed to "infer" paneling which, on the real ship, would likely be almost invisible.

Remember... both are models. Imagine that there's a real ship out there, and both are "approximations" of that "real" ship. Neither is exactly correct. The trick is to figure out what the "real" version is like, unless your sole purpose is to study the models (like what Dave Shaw has done with TOS models).

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Whle that's not a terrible attempt to "fix" the discontinuity between the two models... to me it feels like "desperation." (No offense intended!)

But that is only your subjective opinion, while I'm trying not to be subjective. Some might've argued that acknowledging the Klingon foreheads was desperation; others have argued that the Yamato couldn't have possibly changed its registry number from NCC-1305-E to NCC-71807 (laws of registry physics?) "Desperation" more accurately describes off-the-cuff hypotheses which don't fit the data at all.

As far as I'm concerned, the "real" ship isn't exactly identical to either model. The overall shapes are more like the 6-foot version, with only one minor difference (the saucer rim, which on the 6-footer cannot accomodate "Ten Forward" at all). The panel detailing is like NEITHER, frankly, since both are detailed to "infer" paneling which, on the real ship, would likely be almost invisible.

I haven't measured the six-footer, but yes, it is possible that the saucer rim would have to be slightly thicker, or that the "real" location would have to be slightly shorter. The important thing is not to look for a "golden mean" between the four-footer and the six-footer, since there is no evidence that the real ship looks like a compromise of the two, and I think you're on the right track. As for the paneling, let us consider Andrew Probert's intent:

WHAT PURPOSE DOES THE AZTEC PATTERN ON FEDERATION STARSHIPS HAVE?
;

I'm sure you've heard that "form follows function". That's a huge part of my design philosophy and it's the 'why' something that I design looks the way it does.

I knew that the entire top & bottom halves of the Enterprise saucer could be cast in one piece but the producers surrounding Roddenberry certainly didn't/don't. And it's becoming increasingly evident that 90% of the casual viewers wouldn't get it either,... with all of the garbaged-up designs so prevalent and generally accepted in today's SF hardware. One of the arguments is that (relatively) giant Starships look like toys if you can't see the panels & plates which our 20th century eyes are used to seeing. It was necessary, therefore, to indicate a 'paneled' surface all over the ship. The gaps between those panels scaled out to some 4 inches wide and 10 inches deep on the movie Enterprise, with my Next Generation ship getting hit much worse. That ship was 12 times the mass of Enterprise-A and close to a half mile in length (actually 7.27 football fields), meaning you would have to be a mile away to comfortably view it in it's entirety. It would, at that distance, look TOTALLY smooth (check an airliner from only 50 feet and you'll see what I mean) however, after I left the show, they remodeled it with alternating panels 18 scale inches high, and more, to satisfy some need to "break up the surface" of a historically smooth ship. Imagine if they did that on the Space Shuttle for "Apollo 13", for instance. The effects people wouldn't do it because that was real and "didn't look that way". So what does that tell you about their "thinking" on the Enterprise and other hardware? You see, another part of my design philosophy is that "if I think of it as real, the viewers will too"...(hopefully). Everything I design is approached as a real world design assignment. That's what I was trained to do as an Industrial Designer from Art Center, and it works.

All of this to answer your question. Well, the answer is.... it was created to indicate some sense of hull fabrication, and I designed it with (what has been called) an Aztec pattern to provide a series of interlocking edges with which to reinforce the ship's surface tensile strength.

Remember... both are models. Imagine that there's a real ship out there, and both are "approximations" of that "real" ship. Neither is exactly correct. The trick is to figure out what the "real" version is like, unless your sole purpose is to study the models (like what Dave Shaw has done with TOS models).

Exactly, that is the trick, but it is important to stay away from subjectivity in that process, so that the resulting explanation is one that can convince as many people as possible. The evidence so far suggests that the real ship would be the six-footer with some minor corrections.