> And how do you place them? I assume you create some patterns a use while
> loops (or something similar) to place them all?
> How do you come up with your general shapes and patterns? Are they
> mathematical in essence?

I wonder if it would be possible to create a program where the input would
be a set of points and the output would be the set of blobs that creates a
saucer bounded by the given points? Several months ago I started writing a
program that would allow Trek Saucers to be generated, given certain
parameters of the saucer section (I wanted to create another very detailed
Voyager model). I haven't finished, yet, and now am thinking I am off-base
in my approach after seeing this ship.

Incidentally, I corresponded with Rick Sternbach, Sr. Illustrator at
Paramount, about the Voyager design. Here is what he wrote back:

RS:  Yes, Voyager is my baby, and while it isn't exactly the shape I had
RS:  originally intended (slightly chunkier Starfleet utilitarian), I'm glad
I was
RS:  able to make the curvy surface work (one of the producers said, "Could
RS:  you make it look more like a Lexus?". Took 82 cross-section drawings to
RS:  get the shape right for the model makers. Fun stuff. The cool thing
about
RS:  Voyager is that it does need to be streamlined a bit to fly in the
RS:  atmosphere, so there's some justification for the form.

[then, referring to a Voyager render I did at
www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/raytace.html]

RS:  The CG render's pretty nice, though I can see you'd need to make
texture
RS:  maps and move a few polys around to get it exactly right. The fore-aft
RS:  cross sections were the easiest; at roughly 1" slices through the ship,
it
RS:  was simple to control the velocities of the curves and allow the model
RS:  guys to cut the sections in masonite, fill in the empty spaces, smooth
it
RS:  out, and use it for a vacuform mold to get the base hull in styrene to
build
RS:  details onto.

I thought y'all might be interested in the exchange. I was surprised to
learn they had a solid model, I had thought it was all CG.

Jon

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