I'm assuming it has nothing to do with cameras or telescopes......I'm guessing it interprets the data from the sensors as a visual represention for the crew?
How does the main viewer on a ship work?
- Thread starter Slappy The Vulcan
- Start date
Why wouldn't it use cameras or telescopes? Too many Trek episodes talk about "sensors" as if they're something other than visual instruments. But news flash: cameras and telescopes are sensors. And they're great sensors. We've learned vast amounts of information about the universe just by looking at it, through telescopes that operate in all parts of the EM spectrum, including visible light. It would be insane not to take advantage of the information that visible light can provide, no matter how far in the future you are.
Of course, if we're talking about the tendency of Trek sensors to show realtime images of things that are light-minutes or light-years away, then yes, there it would stand to reason that what we're seeing is some kind of computer reconstruction of data from FTL sensors of some kind, using tachyons or subspace radio pulses or some such technobabble. But if it's just looking at the planet you're orbiting or a ship that's a hundred kilometers in front of you, there's no sensible reason not to use a plain old telescope and actually look at the damn thing.
Of course, if we're talking about the tendency of Trek sensors to show realtime images of things that are light-minutes or light-years away, then yes, there it would stand to reason that what we're seeing is some kind of computer reconstruction of data from FTL sensors of some kind, using tachyons or subspace radio pulses or some such technobabble. But if it's just looking at the planet you're orbiting or a ship that's a hundred kilometers in front of you, there's no sensible reason not to use a plain old telescope and actually look at the damn thing.
Yes I agree a camera would make sense at short distances, I was just curious about the greater distances, seeing things light years away in real-time as you said.
The TNG manual says some of the displayed images come from optical scanners. Various EM wavelengths are "scanned", inputed, processed, manipulated, and presented. Visable light, for ex., is basically how we see stuff, and it's just a range of wavelength of the EM spectrum. No doubt they are using various tools to measure all wavelenghts, but the tools would be significantly more sensitive, and the information would be processed ridiculously quick into something readable.
The manual states that the viewer has holographic qualities for 3D image displays- That's add some depth to the main viewer when going into warp!
The manual states that the viewer has holographic qualities for 3D image displays- That's add some depth to the main viewer when going into warp!
Something similar to this happened in The Undiscovered Country it seems. I am not sure how far away from the Klingon "incident" the Excelsior was at the beginning of the film, but they definitely needed an enhancement (as Christopher pointed out) to get the whole picture.
Viewers supposedly have some 3D qualities to them also, but that presentation seems a little fudgy sometimes. Usually reserved for person-to-person communications. I mean, are their tactical graphics ever in 3D? It would seem rarely if ever, but I suppose if the story called for it, it would be viable. Generations needed such an interface but went to the trouble of introducing the Stellar Cartography set.
We see tactical graphics so seldom that it's hard to tell. In "The Wounded", the one and only time we get a decent tactical view in TNG, we are cheated out of evidence: the camera stares straight on to the viewer from some distance, so we can't tell whether the graphic would have any depth if viewed slightly from the side, like personnel communications often are.
To be sure, I don't see why such a graphic should have 3D features. It would see use in combat situations, where everyone would be seated down, and would be looking at the screen from dead ahead anyway.
In DS9, the big screen in the briefing room aboard the station is never 3D, and personnel communications on the small wall panels are also 2D (because this time, they are filmed using real video screens, and not inserted in post-production). Aboard Starfleet ships and installation, there are a number of rotating displays with perspective worked into them, but these are seen on simple 2D displays that do not have the nifty "off-boresight" feature of the E-D main viewer. And they aren't seen on a starship's main viewer, or on a similar large display wall, so the need for "off-boresight" is reduced.
To our dismay, the Defiant viewer never really sports a true "tactical display". The best we ever manage is the starmap in "The Search", and while it looks flat enough, it's never shot from an acute angle that would tell us the whole truth.
Timo Saloniemi
^Don't forget the 3D graphic seen in TWOK as part of the Kobayashi Maru test.
BTW: One TWOK thing that has always bugged me about the Mutara Nebula battle concerns the loss of the viewscreen: Why is there no other way to send a visual image except through some type of "sensors"?
There is no reason that some type of video camera could have been used - or "Eyeball Mark I" - at various windows.
But given the requirements of the script, the lack of foresight on the part of the crew is to be expected.
BTW: One TWOK thing that has always bugged me about the Mutara Nebula battle concerns the loss of the viewscreen: Why is there no other way to send a visual image except through some type of "sensors"?
There is no reason that some type of video camera could have been used - or "Eyeball Mark I" - at various windows.
But given the requirements of the script, the lack of foresight on the part of the crew is to be expected.
We're talking about somewhat different definitions of "3D" here...
In TNG, the main viewer was famous for allowing the people watching the image to see different sides of the image by moving to different sides of the viewscreen. For example, if the person (that is, the camera) walked to the right side of the bridge, they would see the left cheek of Commander Tomalak; if they walked to the left side, they would see the right cheek.
This was because the viewscreen image was added in post-production, and it would have required elaborate optical/computer trickery to "squash" the image to match the looks of a TV-screen-seen-from-an-angle. It was much easier to shoot the action on the bridge from one direction, then shoot the action in the image from the same direction, and then cut-and-paste the two.
Would the graphic in ST2 look any different if Kirk walked to the right side of the bridge to look at it? Probably not - but again, we only see this graphic filmed from more or less dead ahead because it is a post-production addition, and couldn't easily be "squashed" for a side view. So we can pretend that it was 3D in the sense the TNG main viewer was.
See the difference? Say, hold your hand in front of you. Move your head to see it from multiple sides. That's a 3D image of a three-dimensional object, as in TNG. Now take a digi-photo of the hand, put it on your monitor, and try to look at it from different directions. That's a 2D image of a three-dimensional object. And it's still 2D even if you shoot a video that shows the hand rotating so that you can see both the palm side and the backside.
Good point.
But perhaps such a camera was used. Indeed, perhaps this is exactly what a "sensor" is. The reasons for the shitty image would then be one or both of these:
1) The nebula would interfere with all instrumentation, making any imagery on the screen flicker like that - including realtime imagery from the nebula, computer-generated tactical maps, or Kirk's steamiest holiday videos. (But one would think that the ship would have been in greater distress than that if such flicker affected all instrumentation aboard!)
2) The nebula wouldn't interfere with a well-protected video circuit inside the ship, but it would interfere with the optical instrument that protruded out of the ship. So while standard optical imagery could be obtained, and perhaps be patched to the viewer in some non-electronic, non-duotronic form such as simple light on an optical cable, the ship would still be deprived from the intricate gadgetry that allows the optics to see targets that are thousands of kilometers away, obscured by the gases of the nebula, all in the pitch-black environment of the nebula interior.
A Mk I Eyeball might have been completely blind in that environment. Even what little we saw when the ships came to close visual contact could have been "computer-enhanced" for the benefit of the audience.
Timo Saloniemi
Let us not forget the miraculous "drama processing" software which always determines when and how to zoom in dramatically and/or change the camera on whomever is speaking on the main viewscreen. That kind of technology is obviously of vital importance in the future.
I'd think it would be standard consumer technology within a few years from now, really. Whether a future space military would adopt it is another question entirely, but you have to admit that Captain's Logs would be rather boring if not for a few zoom-ins. I mean, somebody at Starfleet is supposed to watch through this material at some point, right? Why not make their job a bit more enjoyable?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Along similar lines, I've always wanted to see the captain order "maximum magnification," only to get an extreme closeup of the enemy ship's hull plating.DumbDumb2007
Commander
is it a massive flat screen ?
On teh enterprise d if it was shit off therewas nothing behind it ? see generations.
in Fc the viewer was a holo projection they woukld turn on from time to time. i didnt like it.
On teh enterprise d if it was shit off therewas nothing behind it ? see generations.
in Fc the viewer was a holo projection they woukld turn on from time to time. i didnt like it.
ed629
Rear Admiral
On TNG, on one episode at the least, they did give the impression that the main viewer presents images in 3D. Picard was talking to a Romulan, in one shot, you saw the Romulan on the viewscreen straight on. Then in another shot, you were looking at the viewscreen as if you were at the right front of the bridge. And you could see the left side of the Romulan, and slightly below while Picard was in the same spot. I do remember a discussion of it on here where many people were confused by it, and wanted to know why they would change the view angle of the Romulan, when we were actually seeing what someone on the bridge would see if they walked from position behind or next to Picard to the right front of the bridge.
