Sunday 9 September 2007

Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D

Update: It appears that the latest version of Google Earth, v4.2.0196.2018 beta released 12th September, breaks the GroundOverlay. Hopefully they will get this fixed in the next version. Thanks to Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog for the tip.

Who says GroundOverlays are for overlaying the ground? It's been a busy week and no posts since Monday, but I haven't been idle. I've put together a multi-overlay of the Starship Enterprise, based on an original set of blueprints by Ed Whitefire that I came across in an article by Phil Broad @ cloudster.com, a site devoted to resources for sci-fi model builders.

Ed has very kindly allowed me to use his artwork for this project, which has generated some quite striking visuals:

View in Google Earth

The overlay actually contains 43 layers, one for every deck, but only half of them are active by default. This should spare those of us with older PCs and graphics cards - those of you with computer power rivalling the Starship Enterprise may like to enable more of the layers!

The flash video below gives an idea of what it looks like:

I've chosen to place the Enterprise at Point Nemo, which distinguishes itself as the point at sea furthest from any land. I chose that location in the hope that the lack of high resolution ground images would help things along performance-wise. It looks great when navigated with a SpaceNavigator mouse, though is a bit more difficult to view with standard mouse and keyboard controls. I originally had the Enterprise at a much higher altitude, but dropped it much closer to sea level after some feedback from Ed.

The blueprints used in this are much lower resolution than the originals, which are of much higher quality. Those interested in printed copies of the blueprints should check out the Cloudster link above for details.

1 comment:

amenthes said...

This is one of the cooles things i've seen in a while! Thanks!