Design
Andrew Probert, who assisted in updating the original Enterprise for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, designed the Enterprise-D. Originally tasked with designing the bridge, Probert had a "what if" sketch hanging on his wall that he had drawn after working on The Motion Picture. Story editor David Gerrold saw the sketch and brought it to creator Gene Roddenberry's attention, who approved the sketch as a starting point for the Enterprise-D's design.
An Industrial Light & Magic team supervised by Ease Owyeung built two filming miniatures (a six foot model and a two foot model) for "Encounter at Farpoint", the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot, and these models were used throughout the first two seasons. For the third season, model-maker Greg Jein built a four-foot miniature, which had an added layer of surface plating detail. The six-foot model was used whenever a saucer separation sequence needed to be filmed, and it was then updated by ILM for use in Star Trek Generations. In October 2006, the six-foot Enterprise shooting miniature was auctioned in New York City at Christie's auction house, along with other models, props, costumes, and set pieces from the Star Trek franchise. Its projected value was $20,000 to $30,000; but the final sale price was $576,000. It was the most expensive item in the auction.
ILM's John Knoll also built a CGI Electric Image model of the Enterprise-D for the film Star Trek Generations (1994). That model was transferred to LightWave and used to create various Galaxy-class starships in episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Timeless".
Eden FX's Gabriel Köerner built a new CGI LightWave model for the Enterprise-D's appearance in Star Trek: Enterprise's series finale, "These Are the Voyages...".
The proportions of the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D were different from the original Enterprise while retaining its familiar dual warp nacelles and saucer section appearance. The warp nacelles were made proportionally smaller than the saucer section based on the idea that warp engines would have become more efficient over time.
Read more about this topic: USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)
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—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)