Ship sizing...your thoughts

[SicOne]

Recent discussion in another thread had me wondering, and my questions here are pretty much a continuation of a post I had made in that thread that didn't get much of a response, so here goes on a thread all by itself.

What sources do you use for ship length, width, and height? Books? Trekpedia? Websites? Did you sit down with a ruler and the Galaxy-class blueprints? As near as I can determine, the various ship lengths given on the Ex Astris Scientia website appear to be the best compromise between competing valid sources that I have access to.

Once upon a time, shortly after the Trekpedia was released, I took the relevant Trekpedia pages that had all the profile views of the ships as well as the few pages that showed overhead views, then magnified those views until I had each one large enough to take up most of an 11x17 paper. I then sat down with a ruler and calculator and measured out the various dimensions of the overall ship, primary and secondary hulls, warp nacelles, other things. I have since lost those measurements, but I did not know if had been discussed on Trek Tech if those ship lengths in the Trekpedia were accurate.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I have a little file where I keep the ships broken down by class and I chart the various dimensions as given from various sources, whether they be tech manuals, websites, Trekpedia, Starship Spotter, cutaway posters, etc. There's a fair amount of variation, but I've found it helpful when posting on Trek Tech to have that file handy

What about you folks, what do you use? Did you figure your own?

 

[blssdwlf]

I take screenshots from an episode and rebuild the model in 3D and then using a reference point (known size of object in scene) to determine size. Works on the TOS Enterprise and Enterprise-refit so far Doesn't work on ships that have no reference points (like people or known-sized objects) or are inconsistently sized by FX.

 

[Bill Morris]

You don't want to know! (Boring explanation follows.)

Okay, I look first at the ESA figure then scour the ends of the World Wide Web for clues, which sometimes can be found in strange places. And some of it I get from TrekBBS members right here on Trek Tech, like the suggestion that I determine the length of the Nebula class based on its saucer width being the same as that of a Galaxy class. That seems like a no-brainer, but I didn't think if it myself. Someone suggested it in a thread here. In some cases, I could find original design drawings at Drex Files (as in the case of the Wells class, where Rick Sternbach had an overall length marked on his drawing greatly different from the EAS figure) or Eavesdropping with Johnny (where John Eaves mentioned the type of seats and cockpit used in the mockup of the Reman scorpion, and I calculated dimensions using blueprints for those two items and got a vessel length vastly different from that at EAS and elsewhere on the Web). I also have used the dimensions of seats and consoles given in the Christie's catalog to determine the dimensions of some shuttles and the NX Inspection pod. In the case of the NX shuttlepod, they auctioned off the cockpit section and listed its dimensions. That made it easy. For the Argo shuttle and its truggy, I used the known wheelbase of the Toyota SR5 sitting under that freaky fiberglass body. For the Aeon, I overlaid the outline over a detailed cross-sectional schematic of a Mercedes C-class in various sizes, trying squeeze a Mercedes seat into the Aeon's cockpit, to discover a minimum possible overall length of 8 meters, despite Tuvok's quick estimate of "approximately 6 meters" made under adverse conditions of poor viewing angle and a temporal rift in the background. For the TOS shuttlecraft, I scaled it according to the interior sets, using a huge amount of screencaps obtained from Phil Broad's comprehensive site dedicated to that vessel. And just yesterday, Boris, in the current thread about Nova-class deck plans, posted some valuable information about the Nova class that helped me confirm the overall length of that vessel that has recently came to light. (EAS has the updated figure and no longer shows the old analysis).

So lots of research, measuring, and calculating--even asking. For starships, I do a reality check based on the notion that deck heights shouldn't deviate greatly from 13 feet center to center. For deck layout the TOS E, Shaw's diagrams are required reading.

But most of it at EAS is good, and some of it is backed up by detailed explanations.

In the case of the Ambassador class, I use the length in the original blueprints, and EAS shows the figure in the Star Trek Encyclopedia. They're not vastly different, and either way it's a nice-looking ship seen on screen too few times.

Anyway, that's pretty much the background for how I determine the dimensions shown on my schematics. And if I do get something wrong, sooner or later somebody here on TrekBSS spots it and let's me know, and I make a correction. Actually, after all that nonsense, maybe the dimensions on my Web site are a pretty good reference!

 

[Captain Robert April]

The best starting point is, generally, the folks who designed the ship in the first place. After all, who would know better?*

Lacking that, if it's a shared universe, then a comparison with another ship which has an established length, and making your best guess based upon a careful comparison, looking for similar features, etc.

If it's a standalone, then you're on your own.

*Of course, this standard logical approach falls apart when it comes to ST09, since the producers can't even keep things straight with their version of the Enterprise (we've got at least three different sizes from what would otherwise be considered unimpeachable sources) and openly flaunted their total disregard for technical consistency.

 

[BlobVanDam]

For my model, I just found as many different figures as I could from all over the internet and went with the general consensus. Since I'm only building exterior, it wasn't a crucial measurement for me. I can't imagine the nightmare of scale issues with trying to fit interiors in too. There wasn't all that much variation in the figures for Voyager anyway. It's not as debated and cared about as something like the 1701.

 

[Timo]

The best starting point is, generally, the folks who designed the ship in the first place. After all, who would know better?

Alas, this seldom works in practice, because once the ship is designed, it's off the hands of the artist and subject to the preferences of the photographing team. The director will have his or her say, while the actual VFX team has its ideas on what looks best, as well as on what can and cannot be done with physical models.

Some designs have size-establishing features thought out by the artist (or sometimes by a second artist who applied them on an earlier product), and those ought to override the shooting choices, except perhaps in the most blatant cases of "perspective error". Many ships don't - the Defiant is a good example of this - and then photography ought to take precedence over the modelmaking artist's intent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

After reading Rick Sternbach's explanation that DS9 was designed one size, that he was then told to add more windows indicating a larger size and then the CG people enlarged it further so it'd look good next to the other (haphazardly scaled) starships, I don't really think of Trek ships as anything more than "generically huge starships" anymore.

 

[Vance]

It just means, as I've said, that you can't just take any single VFX shot as 'proof' of anything definitive of anything Star Trek tech. I would certainly cite DS9, in its entirety, as one of the worst offenders making this rule necessary, due to the sheer number of errors. But we see plenty of oddities in the other series as well, to say nothing of the NuTrek movie.

 

[SicOne]

Thanks for participating, guys...certainly food for thought.

Regarding Voyager, was it designed at 344 meters, or did it just turn out that the VFX guys listened to Sternbach and left it that way? I wasn't sure if it had sizing issues a la 120m vs 174m Defiant.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

Thanks for participating, guys...certainly food for thought.

Regarding Voyager, was it designed at 344 meters, or did it just turn out that the VFX guys listened to Sternbach and left it that way? I wasn't sure if it had sizing issues a la 120m vs 174m Defiant.

We were very lucky with Voyager. Once they approved the basic shape, they really did leave me alone to flesh out the details, draw up the full-size blueprints, and look in on the model construction once in a while. Nobody ever questioned any of the exterior components, no one asked for extra windows or more decks; it just worked. To break up the hull smoothness, the producers asked for some little additional bits, which were the SIF reinforcements, but that was it. Same basic thing happened with the Equinox and Prometheus, they were born just as drawn. As far as dimensions go, I don't think any of these three ships were ever in a VFX situation where the size was "off" by any appreciable amount in comparison to something else. The shuttles and the Delta Flyer were, of course, another story.

And just to clarify, I wasn't asked to add more windows to DS9. The producers gave that directive directly to Tony Meininger's crew building the miniature.

Rick

 

[N1N]

A quick question to Rick.....

When designing a ship for a show do you, just do the outer appearance of a ship, or do you do both the interior and exterior design?

 

[Rick Sternbach]

A quick question to Rick.....

When designing a ship for a show do you, just do the outer appearance of a ship, or do you do both the interior and exterior design?

Mostly the exterior, with the interior sets handled by the production designer-art director-set designer folks. I'll throw in some sketches of specific gizmos like holodeck emitters or sickbay consoles and such, but the basic interior structure is up to those other people. Sometimes I'll do a basic ship sketch, they'll see where things like windows go, they'll design the set windows, and I'll reverse engineer the correct windows back into the model or CGI ship.

Rick

 

[SicOne]

Thanks for the information, Rick.

 

[publiusr]

I think you still had a lot of your drawings that didn't make it into the Chronology in storage. Any plans to post them here or at starshipmodeler.net one day?

 

[Vance]

I think you still had a lot of your drawings that didn't make it into the Chronology in storage. Any plans to post them here or at starshipmodeler.net one day?

Dude, quit going through his stuff! :P