the Key to Time?

[Teletran]

I could send you the ones I have but I'm just about to start university (also the main reason I haven't posted much over the past two years) so it might not be easy to find time to put them all up. I have about 53 related to the key and tracer mostly from "The Ribos Operation" and "Armageddon Factor" but some of them are distorted and need size correction.

[purpleblancmange]

Studies come first you know, so best keep your mind on that rather than silly old bits of plastic... I'm sure we can wait for some pictures when you get around to it.  As I've said before, I'm not desperate for images, but knowing that there are some out there makes it all better.

Thanks for that though, but seriously - keep abreast of the important things first.  As someone once said, "The three most important things in life are; education, education and education."  Obviously he missed out other stuff like air, food, water etc, but you get the idea.

[Teletran]

Let's not go nuts, I'm only doing one unit this semester and it hasn't started yet so I still have some free time but rest assured if I have somewhere more important to be I won't let doctor who fandom stand in my way.

What would be helpful though is if I had some way to post the pictures, at the moment I have 72 bitmap images measuring 768x576 pixels at 1.26 MBs each. It would take forever to put them all on imageshack any suggestions?

Not all of the images are equally relevant, some are just basic tardis reference and I don't exactly have captures of each segment from various angles because the individual segments where rarely shown for more than a few seconds, that being said there are one or two places I could go back and look at.

[noIMG]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/9208/tracernf2.th.png[/img]

[exilea]

Download Irfanview, it's a free image program. Ctrl+R brings up the resize/resample menu. Resize it quickly with one of the presets (640x480 or something) and save it as a jpeg. Very quick way of reducing the file size to a couple hundred KB.

[Teletran]

Ok good advice, not actually any different than I would have done before but a lot faster. I kept the same image size but made them half compression jpgs and used the infraview batch conversion function to process all the files in a matter of moments. Here are the first 20 I'll upload the rest when I get some more imageshack credits.





The last image is a comparison between the original image and the compressed version a completely black image would be identical. The current distortion cannot be seen without further enhancement (as here).  One other thing is that the images where originally recorded with the wrong image size and I had to "repair them" this may have led to a slight distortion of the horizontal pixels but this should not be noticeable.

[Teletran]

Here's the next lot

 
I hope this isn't too overwhelming.

[purpleblancmange]

Thanks for those, certainly a lot of images there. 

I must admit, I'm finding the Key prop a bit confusing right now - but then that's the problem with transparent items, you end up wondering what exactly you're looking at.

At this stage, I'm kind of thinking that if we could get something that looks the part fairly convincingly, we'll be okay, even if it's not perfect.  That said, it not being perfect would bug me.

We'll get there in the end.  Once again, thanks for taking the time to post up the captures.

[meantimebob]

what were the segments made of originally? Were they clear cast resin or solid acrylic? In the Ribos Operation its obvious that the completed Key is composed of the separate pieces but in the Armaggedon Factor they've been replaced by an extremely lacklustre and cheap looking perspex box. Anyone know the reason for this? Had the other pieces been lost in the interim?

[purpleblancmange]

The first two versions were clear cast resin, but the later one was, as you said, just perspex pieces glued together.  I have a feeling that although the other two props were still around by the recording of the final story, they'd taken a bit of a battering and so this lightweight version was made as a replacement... plus being not as heavy, it was easier to handle.

[Teletran]

The most important measurement as far as I see it is proportion of the length of the overall cube to the diameter of the round core (i.e. the hole the tracer fits into) after that everything but the scale of the prop can be deduced from the shape of the pieces.

[exilea]

Hot damn! Glad I could be of help for once 

[meantimebob]

Over on drwhoprops.com there's a little bit about the resin versions and a couple of photos, apparently the prop became very discoloured due to being exposed to heavy smoking, probably in the Dr Who production office. The segments were made in wood, then moulded in silicone and cast in clear resin, layer by layer to prevent over heating in the mould. Very interesting.

[Teletran]

I've taken a few more snaps from "The Androids of Tara", "The Power of Kroll" and a couple more from "The Armageddon Factor".
[noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4387/PDVD_033.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3204/PDVD_038.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3875/PDVD_024.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1377/PDVD_022.th.jpg[/img][noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4931/PDVD_008.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2179/PDVD_032.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4387/PDVD_015.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3331/PDVD_007.th.jpg[/img]    [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1451/PDVD_036.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4637/PDVD_034.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4417/PDVD_035.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4779/PDVD_021.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1549/PDVD_013.th.jpg[/img] [noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/1455/PDVD_012.th.jpg[/img]

This gives us a pretty good look at the fifth segment so I've drawn up a few diagrams, the gray area represents the size and shape of the overall cube, the orientation of the segment within the cube is strictly arbitrary. Oh and as far as I can tell the core is about 1/9th the length of the cube.

Front[noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2781/right01.th.jpg[/img]RightTopBack[noIMG]http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3540/bottom01.th.jpg[/img]Bottom

[Darksyde]

Wow, very cool. Thanks for all your efforts.

[Teletran]

At this point I have to say that I think Brigitte Jellinek is right, at least as far as the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th segments are concerned, I'll have to take a closer look at the 3rd and 4th onscreen to be sure but I've been comparing the model to the DVD captures and it's been holding up remarkably well aside from being left to right reversed and that's only because of which side of the paper I used.

For the sake of completeness here is a link to her original post:
http://welten.horus.at/1994/08/the-key-to-time/