Tony's Console Room Measurements

[tony farrell]

Thanks Rassilonsrod - you make an interesting point. I've seen that people have modelled the horizontal strips (what I've called the ledges or sills) with round fronts. However, this photo (from "Planet of the Giants") indicated that they were definitely square...



As regards your specific comment that the equivalent strips on the uprights were round, it's very difficult to be definitive about this. 405 lines does not make for a high definition screen grab especially when the Fault Locator is in the background and the camera is focussed on the actors. Glare from the studio lights doesn't help either.
Nevertheless, as always when someone comments, I've looked for better screen grabs. This is the best I can find:






To my eye, there isn't anything to distinguish any real difference in the profile of the ledges and the profile of the uprights.

This grab shows the panels arranged with the uprights 'paired':



If the uprights were round, wouldn't a shadow be visible where they butt up to each other?

I think that they are square - though they may have slightly rounded edges.

Regards

Tony

[Rassilons Rod]

That's fair

[tony farrell]

A while back I posted this picture as my first attempt at pinning down the measurements of the Fault Locator Wall.



I said at the time that I thought that the wall was slightly taller than I had stated to allow for studio filming from a low camera angle. This prompted me to go on  little hunt for better screen grabs. This is what I've come up with:

[tony farrell]

This latest screen grab shows that the upper panel is taller than the middle panel. I make it 34" (so, the same height a the bottom panel). Assuming the height of the middle panel is 29", this takes the overall height of the Fault Locator Wall to 113".
We've already seen that apart from the roundelled walls which have a finished height of 120 to 120.5" tall (depending on whether their supporting casters were 3 or 3.5"), the other elements of the Tardis set (doors to the living quarters, Perspex screens either side of these doors, etc) are 114" tall.
It's not too big a stretch of the imagination therefore to state that the overall height of the Fault Locator Wall is the same - i.e., 9' 6".
Before I began this topic, back in the main Tardis Doors thread, I argued that artistically a roundel diameter of 25.5" made no sense. To those working in Imperial measurements, 24" made much more sense (a way of thinking, a mind-set or, if you like, a paradigm).
I think the same about the height of the middle panel; 29" doesn't make sense artistically or in terms of 'neat' Imperial measurements. What I therefore now think is that the heights of the three panels in the fault locator are 34", 30" and 34"(and each panel is separated by two one inch ledges which, themselves, are two inches apart). This - with the 8" at the bottom - gives an overall height of 114".
 

[tony farrell]

Earlier I also stated that (by counting the pixels in various screen grabs and pictures) I consistently came up with a figure of 84" for the width of the Fault Locator's central panel and that the panels to either side of it were half this width, so, 42". I realise that you might want a bit more evidence for this assertion.
In this picture, I've returned to the console and the hexagonal floor plate on which it stands.



Again, taking the diameter of the hexagonal floor plate as 120", I've drawn perspective lines in pink. Each pink equilateral triangle measures 60" by 60" by 60". The green lines therefore represent a distance of 30" with the shorter green lines equaling divisions of 15". I hope that you agree the widths I've stated for the panels in the Fault Locator therefore look correct when compared to the pink and green lines I've drawn.

Instead of the 268" (or a little over 22 feet) I first stated the overall length of the Fault Locator Wall to be, based in these screen grabs, I now make the overall length to be 22' or 264".



Kind Regards

Tony

[tony farrell]

Floor plan updated accordingly.

[markofrani]

Hi Tony,
Something still nagging me about the diameter estimate of the hexagonal floor plate. My "guesstimation" is still wider than the 120". I make it more like 144".
The problem I have is that the floor plate was obviously intended for people to stand/walk around the console, and bearing in mind the console is around the 86" diameter, there doesn't seem to be enough metal plate for them to do that if the diameter of the floor plate was only 120".

[DoctorWho8]

Actually, using this photo, it may be easier to extrapolate the floor panel measurements by using a little Illustrator and Photoshop "measuring".

So, let's start off with what we think we know.  The console is 86" at its widest.  That means the width of a panel is 43".  In the photo, the panel measures 2.07" wide (that is factoring in the angle too).

The floor plate measures 3.6" wide.  This means the floor plates are about almost 175% larger than the width of the console panels.  This translates to the max width of the floor plates to being 150" wide with individual sides at 75".



This illustration from above is at a 1"=12" scale to show how far out the floor panels stick out from the console.


What do you all think?
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[markofrani]

That to me looks a lot closer.

[tony farrell]

Thanks Jonathan and Bill...it's good to know that others are contributing to my thread.

Having thought about what you've both said, I've looked again at the hexagonal floor plate and how it relates to the console.

There are two factors that need to be considered: Firstly distortions based on camera angle and secondly distortions caused by pixelation - the further something is away from the camera, the more difficult it is to get an exact figure by counting the pixels. This means that no matter how honestly I've tried to count the pixels, there is always going to be a margin of error. To give you an example - let's assume that we take an object in the foreground of a picture and measure this object as six pixels wide. Let's also assume that we know this object is 1" wide in real life. So, six pixels equals one inch. Now, if we move the same object to the background of a picture, perspective dictates that it will appear smaller. Accordingly, the number of pixels in that object must also reduce. Add to this the fact that, in its early years, Dr Who was recorded in 405 lines (effectively 405 pixels screen height) and you can see that the further an object is from the camera, the greater the potential is for distortion. This distortion is further compounded by the technology of the time - unlike today where televisions are flat screen, in the 1960s, cathode ray tubes meant the screen is curved. The vid-firing process can only compensate for this curve and not eliminate it altogether (this is what the guys at the DVD restoration team call geometric distortion) and explains why, if you pause the DVD, the top and bottom of the image appears to splay outwards.

This screen grab illustrates my point. I've drawn the yellow lines perfectly vertically. Now either the BBCs set-builders had been on the beer when the Tardis set was assembled or the picture is distorted!  

 


For any measurement I take, an allowance has to be made for this distortion - in practice this means counting the number of pixels a differing points on the screen and averaging the different results to come up with an acceptable result.

Specific to the hexagonal floor plate, there is the additional problem of its edging strip. In this screen grab, we can see that one of these strips is missing:



Where you measure the floor plate from therefore makes a difference and, realistically, could distort the overall measurement by as much as two inches - and the floor plate is in the foreground, so this (with the difficulties surrounding screen distortion and allowing for perspective reducing the number of pixels) serves to make matters even harder.

[galacticprobe]

I'm still just a bit confused on this one regarding the console's max width ("diameter"). According to that earlier discussion I mentioned, purpleblancmange confirmed that the original console was 7 feet 8 inches wide (the important bit bold-faced by me):

Just to add a further comment to Crispin's rather excellent explanation, "The Console is 8 feet wide" comment was only ever a generalisation, a rounded up figure.  To be more exact, it's 7' 8" wide - as stated and backed up on all the existing plans that have been published in various books and magazines over the years.

I know the console changed diameters over the years as it was repaired/modified, but when was it decided that the original was smaller than what Purple stated? (7'8"=92" - 86" only = 7'2". That missing 6 inches can throw all of the other measurements off.)

I've read through that other discussion and I can't find anything to contradict Purple's measurements. The only contradictions are in this thread, but there isn't any source material cited for it, as with Purple's mention of existing plans. So when was it decided that the original console was smaller than what Purple said it was?

Dino.

[tony farrell]

Despite these problems, I've revisited the measurements of the floor plate.

This is what I've come up with:





What do we all think?

Kind Regards

Tony

[tony farrell]

I know the console changed diameters over the years as it was repaired/modified, but when was it decided that the original was smaller than what Purple stated? (7'8"=92" - 86" only = 7'2". That missing 6 inches can throw all of the other measurements off.)

I've read through that other discussion and I can't find anything to contradict Purple's measurements. The only contradictions are in this thread, but there isn't any source material cited for it, as with Purple's mention of existing plans. So when was it decided that the original console was smaller than what Purple said it was?

Dino.

Thanks Dino - I've taken the measurement of 86" from posts made by both Celation and Crispin earlier in this thread (see page five).
Tony

[DoctorWho8]

Dino, I think the 86" may be found in discussions of the Pertwee console, as I know it was discussed using pics from the 3 Doctors to illustrate the longer panels on it versus the original console.  I argued that the panels had about an extra 3" in length when you look at the positions of the controls from the panel edges to the bottom of their locations.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[celation]

My own reason for supporting the smaller console size for the Hartnell model was down to my research for my console build.

In collecting components, I found matching 60s pieces which could act as "rulers" for the original console. Using these it was soon obvious that the larger measurement just wouldn't work. So I came up with a revised number which works very well with the build.

As Bill says - you can also see the extra space at the edge of the Pertwee console.

The simplest way to check is to measure the proportions of the column diameter vs overall diameter of each console.