How big is V'ger
ThePunisher
Starship Dimensions site www.merzo.net has it at 98km, and has the
Constitution II at 305m, as you can see in this screen grab
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/365/geros2.jpg the Enterprise is 500m
above this round feature on V'ger, according to the SD site this feature is
only 100m long, since this can't be correct the round feature on V'ger must
be at least 2500m (2.5km) long making the whole ship at least 2400km long,
thoughts anyone?
--
ThePunisher
GeneK
"ThePunisher" <thepu...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:xsNHg.27$t4...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
In dialog Decker says it reads 78km in length. The length of the
E-A is estimated at about 300m, so that would make V'ger about
260 times larger than the ship. Since we never get a shot of the
entire V'ger and we know the flyover sequence was originally
longer and was cut for time, I don't see any basis for concluding
that Decker was so incompetent that he didn't read the length
correctly when Spock was sitting right there to correct any
error he might make. No other dimensions are mentioned in
the film.
BTW, without knowing the supposed distance of the cinema
camera from the ships and the focal length of its lens, you
can't be sure that V'Ger doesn't seem larger than it really is
by comparison due to perspective distortion. Remember how
Hobbits are made to look small. Scaling the image is not a
reliable method.
GeneK
GeneK
"GeneK" <gene@genek_hates_spammers.com> wrote...
> In dialog Decker says it reads 78km in length.
Oops, on second thought, I'm not sure that scene is
actually in the film, just that it's in the "shooting
script."
GeneK
christopherbasken
> BTW, without knowing the supposed distance of the cinema
> camera from the ships and the focal length of its lens, you
> can't be sure that V'Ger doesn't seem larger than it really is
> by comparison due to perspective distortion. Remember how
> Hobbits are made to look small. Scaling the image is not a
> reliable method.
The only problem with this shot is that the only real option is for
V'Ger to be even larger than it appears, since it's in the background.
GeneK
<Christopher Basken> wrote in message
news:2006082601...@news.giganews.com...
> The only problem with this shot is that the only real option is for V'Ger
> to be even larger than it appears, since it's in the background.
A longer focal length will make objects in the background appear
larger.
GeneK
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
GeneK wrote:
> "ThePunisher" <thepu...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:xsNHg.27$t4...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
> > Well, how big is it?
> >
> > Starship Dimensions site www.merzo.net has it at 98km, and has the
> > Constitution II at 305m, as you can see in this screen grab
> > http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/365/geros2.jpg the Enterprise is 500m
> > above this round feature on V'ger, according to the SD site this feature
> > is
> > only 100m long, since this can't be correct the round feature on V'ger
> > must
> > be at least 2500m (2.5km) long making the whole ship at least 2400km long,
> > thoughts anyone?
>
> In dialog Decker says it reads 78km in length. The length of the
> E-A is estimated at about 300m, so that would make V'ger about
> 260 times larger than the ship. Since we never get a shot of the
> entire V'ger and we know the flyover sequence was originally
> longer and was cut for time, I don't see any basis for concluding
> that Decker was so incompetent that he didn't read the length
> correctly when Spock was sitting right there to correct any
> error he might make. No other dimensions are mentioned in
> the film.
Uh, Gene. Not to rain on your parade, but nowhere in ST:TMP does anyone
state the size of the V'Ger vessel, not even in the Director's Cut
Special Edition, which cut the cloud size down from over 82 A.U., down
to a little over 2 A.U.. I think your mistaking the Star Trek: Phase II
scripts, as well as the ST:TMP novelization 79 km number for dialog
actually spoken in the canon film.
In the ST:TMP DC SE, we do now see the entirety of V'Ger, as was
originally ment to be seen in the theatrical version, but cut due to
time and budget. It is possible therefore to come up with reasonable
scalings. The 2,400 km scaling is way over sized, though you can get a
substantially larger-than-98 km number scaling it off the "drum"
feature the E-1701 is flying over in the screencap.
Another thing, the whole "You can't scale this because of perspective
change" is irrelevant since it is clearly ordered by Kirk and confirmed
by Sulu that the ship is flying over the vast ship at 500 meters
altitude, then holds relative position at 100 km. Thus reasonable
ball-park photogrametric estimates are possible here with that given
information.
In this series of images:
http://www.ditl.org/picship.php?misvger&1
...the third to last shows the entire V'Ger vessel, and the "drum" and
the connecting "peninsular" feature are just visible towards the
bulbous bow of the ship. You can at least gauge the height/width of
V'Ger from this image.
-Mike
GeneK
<mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote in message
news:1156624790.4...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Uh, Gene. Not to rain on your parade, but nowhere in ST:TMP does anyone
> state the size of the V'Ger vessel, not even in the Director's Cut
> Special Edition, which cut the cloud size down from over 82 A.U., down
> to a little over 2 A.U.. I think your mistaking the Star Trek: Phase II
> scripts, as well as the ST:TMP novelization 79 km number for dialog
> actually spoken in the canon film.
Actually, I was reading it off my copy of the shooting script, but yes,
you're right, it's not in the film as released. I mentioned in a followup
post that that comment was questionable.
> In this series of images:
>
> http://www.ditl.org/picship.php?misvger&1
>
> ...the third to last shows the entire V'Ger vessel, and the "drum" and
> the connecting "peninsular" feature are just visible towards the
> bulbous bow of the ship. You can at least gauge the height/width of
> V'Ger from this image.
I'm not seeing any images on this URL, just text. So what's your
estimate? Since it would seem there is no onscreen dialog on the
size.
GeneK
GeneK
lighting team, there actually was a fully assembled V'Ger
shooting model. Does anyone know what happened to it?
http://www.barbeefilm.com/vgerpage02.htm
GeneK
ThePunisher
> substantially larger-than-98 km number scaling it off the "drum"
> feature the E-1701 is flying over in the screencap.
>
> Another thing, the whole "You can't scale this because of perspective
> change" is irrelevant since it is clearly ordered by Kirk and
> confirmed by Sulu that the ship is flying over the vast ship at 500
> meters altitude, then holds relative position at 100 km. Thus
> reasonable ball-park photogrametric estimates are possible here with
> that given information.
>
> In this series of images:
>
> http://www.ditl.org/picship.php?misvger&1
>
> ...the third to last shows the entire V'Ger vessel, and the "drum" and
> the connecting "peninsular" feature are just visible towards the
> bulbous bow of the ship. You can at least gauge the height/width of
> V'Ger from this image.
> -Mike
I can't see how 2400km is way over size when you agree with that size in
your last paragraph, the 'drum' is clearly a lot larger than Enterprize and
looking at the entire V'ger screen grab is a very small part of V'ger itself
--
ThePunisher
Jack Bohn
Gone, would be my guess. Vejur was gone and it weren't coming
back. Even on the chance it was built of something non-flimsy,
Trumbull learned from the Master about destroying anything you
didn't want to appear in another production. (The DVD's Okuda
text commentary points out where a lot of the Enterprise sets are
reused, I don't remember any mention of the Vejur parts, but you
could check.)
(The Spacedock interior model for ST III, was that saved for ST
IV?)
--
-Jack
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
It's showing up for me on the first loading. I don't know what you're
seeing on your screen, but if the "images" button is visible, then
click on that, and the images should load up. The V'Ger whole image
will be either third or second to last at the bottom of the page. If
you're still having trouble, go in through the main DITL site, click on
the "Other L-Z" button, scroll down until you find the "V'Ger button
under the "Miscellaneous" section, then click on the images button once
in the V'Ger entry.
Anyway, I get about 240 or so km for V'Ger.
-Mike
-Mike
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
I have to agree with Jack here. Although many sets and models were
reused from ST:TMP, the V'Ger model would have been difficult, if not
impractical given it's often purported 60-69' length, and the fact that
unlike the refit-Enterprise, for instance, the V'Ger ship is clearly
only a one-off spacecraft, and would be difficult to explain away
needing the model for a future production.
-Mike
GeneK
<mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote...
> It's showing up for me on the first loading. I don't know what you're
> seeing on your screen, but if the "images" button is visible
Found it, thanks. I guess these must be fairly old, or maybe
I'm just not visualizing well, because the drawings don't seem
anything like the few pics I've seen (from the new DVD or
Barbee's site) of the entire shape. I'll just have to defer on
this one to those of you who feel you can make estimates.
GeneK
ThePunisher
news:1156788954....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
How did you work out that size?
--
ThePunisher
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
There's a number of steps you have to go through to get that estimate
(that 240 km is an average really, just so you know):
1.) The "Drum" can be scaled to the E-1701 flying over it, and taking
into account that the Enterprise is some 500 meters altitude above the
feature in question.
2.) The DITL image I pointed out gives us the overall V'Ger craft, and
allows us to see the feature in relationship to V'Ger's bow section,
and derive a height estimate from that. I do NOT use that to estimate a
length since it is a three-quarters view of V'Ger, and can lead to
distortion.
3.) In this image from Memory Alpha:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Vger_evolving.jpg
You can clearly see the outline and proportions of the overall V'Ger
craft, and the height of the bow section can be divided into the
length, and therefore give you a reasonable ballpark figure for V'Ger,
which I roughly estimate between 200 and 400 km.
Now I'am a little bit curious as to how you came by your numbers. You
didn't really go into your methodology in any real detail past
estimating the Drum feature at 2.4 km, and even that's a bit sketchy.
-Mike
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
The drawings seen in the Reeve-Stevens' book "Star Trek Phase II: The
Lost Series" has the Syd Med overall V'Ger concept drawings used in
making the final version seen in the film, the Foundation Imaging CGI
V'Ger created for the ST:TMP DC SE follows this very closely, as well
as adding in the model's surface detailing. You may be confusing the
"In Thy Image" early V'Ger concepts with what actually appears onscreen
in the movie and DVD final version.
-Mike
GeneK
<mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote in message
> You may be confusing the
> "In Thy Image" early V'Ger concepts with what actually appears onscreen
> in the movie and DVD final version.
I'm pretty sure I've never seen the early concept images.
In fact, the only images I've ever seen that appear to
depict the entire V'Ger (not counting all those online
sketches) are the ones from the new DVD version
and that one "V'Ger Lives" photo from Barbee's
site. I just am not able to visualize a side or top
view of V'Ger based only on these two full V'Ger
images (both of which seem to be off-angle views)
and the partial views from the flyover sequence in
the film.
Gene
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
V'Ger is symetrical all around. Regardless, the Barbee photo and the
DVD version would have V'Ger appearing identical from any side of it
you viewed, except the bow and stern section views. The Memory Alpha
screencap I provided in response to Punisher, which is from the DVD SE
version, shows what V'Ger looks in "side" view profile.
-Mike
GeneK
news:1156897601.6...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> V'Ger is symetrical all around. Regardless, the Barbee photo and the
> DVD version would have V'Ger appearing identical from any side of it
> you viewed, except the bow and stern section views. The Memory Alpha
> screencap I provided in response to Punisher, which is from the DVD SE
> version, shows what V'Ger looks in "side" view profile.
> -Mike
I must be very visually challenged at the moment. I remember
seeing an angled view from rear/right, but no profile.
GeneK
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
Once again:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Vger_evolving.jpg
V'Ger is viewed in profile during the exterior "evolution" scene.
-Mike
GeneK
<mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu> wrote...
> V'Ger is viewed in profile during the exterior "evolution" scene.
Ah, so you're talking about that fuzzy box whose ends are sticking
out of the big bright light. Gotcha. Thanks. Guess I'll have to
Netflix the dvd again and see if there's a frame that doesn't obscure
most of the shape.
GeneK
ThePunisher
news:1156890982.0...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
OK the Enterprise is 305m long, on my screen I enlarged this grab,
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/365/geros2.jpg
so that the Enterprise is 1cm long, the feature would then be 9cm,
9x305=2745 taking into account the hight of Enterprise at 500m and the
pespective of the grab, I rounded the figure down to 2400m.
I then went to http://www.merzo.net/ and checked out the V'ger picture
(which I think is an exellent drawing) using his scale he has the 'drum'
feature at 1000m and V'ger 98 times bigger, changing 1000m for 2400m and
multiplying by 98 I got 235200m (rounded to 2400km) for the overall length
of V'ger.
--
ThePunisher
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
Okay, I'am not seeing the math work out here. Assuming your measurement
was correct, that would be 9 x 305 = 2,745m (so far, so good). Leaving
that be in order to get a higher-end estimate for V'Ger, that gives us
2.745 km (2,745 divided by 1000 = 2.745) for the Drum feature. Now 98 x
2.745 = 269 km. All this assumes that the Merzo.net drawing is actually
accurate enough for our purposes.
-Mike
christopherbasken
> Okay, I'am not seeing the math work out here. Assuming your measurement
> was correct, that would be 9 x 305 = 2,745m (so far, so good). Leaving
> that be in order to get a higher-end estimate for V'Ger, that gives us
> 2.745 km (2,745 divided by 1000 = 2.745) for the Drum feature. Now 98 x
> 2.745 = 269 km. All this assumes that the Merzo.net drawing is actually
> accurate enough for our purposes.
Speaking of the Merzo.net drawings, does the Whale Probe seem way to
large at 74km to anyone else?
ThePunisher
news:1157001712.8...@m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com
Lol! you're right, for some reason I've been multiplying by 980 not 98,
duh!!
--
ThePunisher
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
Not really. The 74 km number Merzo.net uses is the one estimated by
Graham Kennedy for his Daystrom Institute Technology Library site, as
is the 98 km V'Ger size. Graham scaled the WP's size from the scene in
ST4 where the probe passes near the 6 km tall Spacedock.
-Mike
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
I decided to reexamine the V'Ger length issue in more detail. Using the
image of the Enterprise's flyover of the so-called 'Drum' feature, I
find that the Drum measures 3.6 inches long, while the Enterprise is
just about 45 one-hundreths of an inch (.45), for a ratio of 8 to 1.
So, then by multiplying 8 times 305 (the commonly accepted
refit-Enterprise length), I find the Drum to be 2,2440m in diameter
before taking into account the 500m altitude of the Enterprise.
I'll continue to use that number for conservative, but likely the drum
is around 2,750m.
Next I went to the scene in the Director's Cut Special Edition of the
V'Ger vessel entering Earth orbit. The first few seconds have a close
up of the bow, and Drum feature is clearly visible. From that I
enlarged it by 2x so that the bow at the "bulb" shapes (the widest
point) was 14" in height, while the drum was .8" in diameter. This
gives us a ratio of 17.5 to 1, thus making the height of the bow some
39.2 km tall.
Next, using the Memory Alpha image of V'Ger's side profile:
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Vger_evolving.jpg
The length of V'Ger is 1.85", while the maximum height of the bow
section is .3" for a ratio of 6.17 to 1. So 6.17 x 39.2 = 241.86 km.
Call it 242 km.
-Mike
ThePunisher
news:1157084233.6...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com
Excellent! I'd like to settle on the nice round figure of 250km, what do you
think?
--
ThePunisher
mdic...@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
Let's see, plugging in the 2.75 km as the Drum feature' s size into the
equation, we would have 336 km as the overall length for the V'Ger
spaceship. So to average, 336 + 242 = 578, then divided by 2 = 289km as
the average. But 250 km works pretty good, too. :-)
-Mike