Refit/1701-A - 3D Model, Full Interior

[DanGovier]

Thanks for the tips, I think I'll order Shane's book on Amazon, it sounds really interesting. I've been playing with a 10ft shaft (fnar fnar), but I'm struggling to get it within the boundary of the geometry. I expect I can just about get it in there if I round off the top as it's only the sharp edge that's poking through. This does mean of course that I have to abandon all hope of lining the turboshafts up with the lumps on the outer hull... they simply don't work with a 36ft wide bridge.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy with decks 1-3 so far in terms of the overall shape. I just need to finish off the rear of the teardrop and the curved slides either side of the bridge dome. My Sketchup kung-fu is weak.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Yes you will have to back the shaft up a bit. I found that 2 dia's for the shaft work best are 6ft or 8ft. You can see the differences on some of my bridge layouts. You've run across the age old issue that what is shown on set doesn't match the details on the model, so take both with a grain of salt and do your best to fit things in or you'll go grey very fast

 

[DanGovier]

I've been working on the teardrop shape today, and I think I'm at a point where I'm finally happy with it. Would be nice if it was slightly rounder at the back... but I can perhaps address that in the future.

It's looking pretty close to the studio model now:

The final hurdle now before I start on the internal structure for decks 1-3 is these stupid curved bits. I just can't get them looking right... are there any Sketchup pro's on the forum?

 

[Go-Captain]

It might be interesting to consider the real forces on the ship are going to be from the aft going forward, from the impulse engines. While the internals might have to deal with 1g of deck gravity, the longitudinal forces would be thousands of g. There is also the torque applied by the RCS system, though much more weakly than the impulse engines, so the ship needs to be rigid against unequal forces in every direction.

That might result in very heavy fore to aft cross bracing in long enough walls and floors, and a higher lateral density of beams going fore to aft. The vertical bracing, such as the door frame, might be relatively light, but not lighter than the port to starboard cross bracing.

 

[sojourner]

The final hurdle now before I start on the internal structure for decks 1-3 is these stupid curved bits. I just can't get them looking right... are there any Sketchup pro's on the forum?

You should have created that as a complete outer dome and then used a cylindrical shape to cut away the portion you don't need. Intersection tool is your friend.

 

[BK613]

^^ I'm not sure that plane is all that curvy, just appears so because it "lays against" the bridge dome:

this large image (2048x1536, 494KB) at mutara.net might help

 

[sojourner]

^^ I'm not sure that plane is all that curvy, just appears so because it "lays against" the bridge dome:

this large image (2048x1536, 494KB) at mutara.net might help

That doesn't change the method I described to create it. Just the shape of the object used for the intersection.

 

[BK613]

^^ I'm not sure that plane is all that curvy, just appears so because it "lays against" the bridge dome:

this large image (2048x1536, 494KB) at mutara.net might help

That doesn't change the method I described to create it. Just the shape of the object used for the intersection.

hmm don't see where I was repudiating your method...just added my observation on the shape the OP was pursuing.

Intersecting works in most cases but if the OP can't make it work with that method* then another option might be using From Contours from the Sandbox tools. SkUp hasn't always given me perfect results with From Contours but typically it has been easier to fix glitches in the results than doing it manually.

Sometimes though, you just have to do something line by line.

------------------
Edited to add for the OP: Since you are taking on such an ambitiously large project, know that when it comes to file size, groups store slightly smaller than components and individual polygons store the largest. That is to say, given a collection of 10 polys, grouped<component<separate. So a general guide would be to group your non-repeatables and component your repeatables. Also, under model info, the statistics option has a purge button that removes unused elements (for example,deleting the initial 2D person doesn't delete the mats added to your model. Purge does.)


* (say the shape isn't as simple as a cylinder)

 

[sojourner]

I've never had much success with the sandbox tools. I can do miraculous things with intersect though.

 

[DanGovier]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm going to have a proper go at that curve tomorrow. Wish me luck

So far the Sketchup file is 70MB. ~5000 edges and ~2000 faces. Considering that's only for 3 empty decks it's going to be huuuge.

I've been working on the scale of the bridge the past couple of days, and this morning I received Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise through the post, which has been helpful (awesome reference material).

I've been trying to scale the bridge to 36ft wide, but the closest I can manage is 34ft. To make it any wider means I either have to downscale the Turbolift or lower the whole bridge further into Deck 2. It's already dropped down a bit, but I figure as the computer core is directly underneath it's not going to cause too much of an issue.

As you can see, the doorway into the Turbolift is going to be 7.2ft high, and the outer width of the shaft is 9.2ft wide. The inside of the car is going to be about 7.5ft in diameter. It's actually scraping the wall just at the base of the dome.

The good news is I reckon there will be plenty of room for Deck 2 beneath the bridge and ahead of the computer core. It only needs to fit Kirk's ready room and a conference table I believe. This will mean I can have a kitchen/galley at the front of the teardrop with a high-bay area all around the outside to make use of the angled portholes for gazing at the stars while dining.

 

[GhostLoveScore]

This is very nice modelling.

 

[sojourner]

70mb seems very large for what you have at this point. How big is the bitmap you're using as the template in the background? I suspect it may be most of the file right now.

 

[Soran77]

I agree with Sojourner. That would have been your best solution, he's right intersect with model is your friend. Though there is another solution if you don't want to redo the whole section , get on google and search Curviloft. It's a plugin that will allow you to create faces from complicated geometry with a clean looking result!

 

[Soran77]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm going to have a proper go at that curve tomorrow. Wish me luck

So far the Sketchup file is 70MB. ~5000 edges and ~2000 faces. Considering that's only for 3 empty decks it's going to be huuuge.

I've been working on the scale of the bridge the past couple of days, and this morning I received Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise through the post, which has been helpful (awesome reference material).

I've been trying to scale the bridge to 36ft wide, but the closest I can manage is 34ft. To make it any wider means I either have to downscale the Turbolift or lower the whole bridge further into Deck 2. It's already dropped down a bit, but I figure as the computer core is directly underneath it's not going to cause too much of an issue.

As you can see, the doorway into the Turbolift is going to be 7.2ft high, and the outer width of the shaft is 9.2ft wide. The inside of the car is going to be about 7.5ft in diameter. It's actually scraping the wall just at the base of the dome.

The good news is I reckon there will be plenty of room for Deck 2 beneath the bridge and ahead of the computer core. It only needs to fit Kirk's ready room and a conference table I believe. This will mean I can have a kitchen/galley at the front of the teardrop with a high-bay area all around the outside to make use of the angled portholes for gazing at the stars while dining.

Okay you need to start creating components, cause that file size is ridiculously large.. Even splitting the bridge section into components would save you from the major lag you are going to get if you haven't already started getting it! The great thing about components is that it doesn't change the file size of the overall file, but when you are in component edit mode you won't have to worry about all the other geometry outside of it giving you lag issues.

 

[Soran77]

Also, that bridge is not to scale.. The way you have sized the reference person is wrong, the hatch at the back of the dome is much larger that what your person makes it look like.

 

[DanGovier]

Ok, deleted the reference images as a test and the file is now 20Mb. Uncompressed PNG's at 4096 pixels long for the win!

Not sure I'm following you on the bridge scale... the overall model is 305 metres long and in line with the blueprints. The person is 180cm tall (5'9"). The docking port opening is 220cm high (7'2"), the same as the Turbolift door height.

 

[sojourner]

There's a completed model of this on 3d warehouse, including interiors. It might help as a reference.

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=4538b2d9d0475d23015bec428ca76df

 

[DanGovier]

Could do with some smoothing, but I'm reasonably happy with the result now. I ended up drawing curved faces from the various angles on the schematics and then intersected them to get the right shape.

I also started work on the docking port at the back. The studio model doesn't have the red lines, but I think I prefer it with them to match the other ports on the ship.

 

[BK613]

IIRC, it was there before the model's repainting by ILM, so I think you're good.

 

[DanGovier]

Took a break from the bridge details to work on the actual hull structure. Nothing too fancy at the moment, I'm just getting things in place before I add any extra details. The largest hole in here is going to be a Jefferies Tube around the edge of the teardrop:

X-Ray vision:

I've also been thinking about the 3D print, so I've made some holes that will have corresponding pegs on the underside of the deck above. This should allow each deck to click together lego-style and also be removable if needed.

The 3D printed pieces will look a bit like this, with pegs and holes at connecting points to make gluing it all together easier:

It's going to be the mother of all 3D puzzles :P