Do It Yourself Star Trek Videos: LCARS Home Interface & RC Enterprise Blimp

This week a couple of cool videos have gone viral, both from European Trekkies making their own Star Trek creations. Firstly there is the Star Trek LCARS home interface from the Netherlands, then there is a RC Enterprise Blimp. Check them out below

 

LCARS House

First up is a video from Pascal van der Heiden, a programmer from the Netherlands who posted a video on YouTube showing off his custom built high tech digital home software patterned after Star Trek: The Next Generation’s famed LCARS interface.

Enterprise Z

The next video comes from Belgian Trekkie Yvon Masyn (a member of the Belgian Star Trek Fan club), who has built his own 2 meter long RC Enterprise dirigible, which he calls the "Enterprise Z" (Z for Zeppelin).

Masyn has posted detailed instructions on how to make your own Enterprise Z at www.instructables.com, where you can also vote on it for the ìInstructables Autodesk Kinetic Sculpture Design Contest.
 

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First.

That was neat.

Would love to have one of those LCARS systems… I can only dream….. Or find someone that knows something about computer programming…

Bananas. Why did it have to be bananas?

“Because, I *loathe* bananas.”

Ok Captain. Quit Monkeying around and get back to your Bridge. It is now My turn. Kool stuf. Just think in 10 to 15 years what we will all be able to do.

Of course, bananas, because it the Enterprise’s next stop is Planet of the Apes, where Kirk will set things aright by reading the E Pleb Neesta and other strangely present documents from early American history.

Kirk, “Monkeys—and men–can live–together. All men–and monkeys–are–created equal. Now, enjoy a ba–nan–a together.”

(Dunsel you sit this mission out, along with the M5 tests).

— = dramatic Shatnerian pause.

Does he take checks!?! Can I get a system for my truck!?!

I have dreamed of a system like this since I was 7!! 21 years later and somebody came up with it. This guy needs to make some money from this and big time. Not only is it an awesome home management system, it’s LCARS!

That programmer’s gonna get nabbed for copyright/trademark infringement for sure… Plus that interface isn’t even that accurate… Rather like those poorly made ripoff iPhone/iPad LCARS apps on iTunes… Plus, I challenge him or another programmer to create a computer system based on the interface of the reboot film!

He has’nt updated his webpage in a while – he seems to have a LOT of projects, and he seems to be making pretty good headway on the LCARS system. I be if we email him we could find out if we could get a copy – since it is based on STAR TREK, technically he cant ‘sell’ copies, but we might be able to work something out with him… Maybe we could all sign up to be beta testers!

#9

First you say he’s going to get nabbed for copyright/trademark infringement, then you want him to make an interface from the reboot.

Wow, with double-talk like that you could run for public office.

Hey, if you want an LCARS look for your home pc, check out http://www.lcarsx32.com, it looks promising

jealous!

Very cool guys — I would love to have one of these. This is better than 10 “news stories” on comic book movies.

^9 Not accurate? LCARS is non-functional scenic artwork from a TV show. It’s the visual equivalent of technobabble. Any functional extrapolation that works consistently is probably going to look “wrong” in some ways, because the “real” LCARS isn’t real and doesn’t do anything, Something designed to look like it works isn’t going to answer all the questions needed to design something that actually works.

#9 (NuKirk): Is he selling this stuff? If not, he will not get “nabbed”. It’s his private work… and it’s amazing. At any rate, I’m with boborci: jealous! SUPER JEALOUS!!!

@15 — I agree, and in fact the LCARS extrapolation in the video seems to do *more* (i.e. a greater diversity of operations) than the representations of it on the shows and movies.

I’m impressed. Only I wouldn’t want it for myself, because it’s too rigid aesthetically… I like different looks for different apps, but that’s me.

@9 — you can’t get nabbed for anything if you’re not selling it.

@16 — ha ha, we were posting the same thought at the same time… :-)

As to what I said about LCARS being too rigid aesthetically (though not functionally, as demonstrated in the video), that is also the reason I hate Facebook. Seriously, how can everyone be into something that you can’t change the colors and design schemes of?

To everyone telling me u can’t get nabbed if it’s not for profit: that never stops a sufficiently motivated and overzealous company from doing so anyway. YouTube in conjunction with the record companies for example is yanking fanvids left and right that contain others music even if no profit is aimed for. Even vids with Fair Use Doctrine stuff posted get yanked. As for my comment about accuracy, I wasn’t referring to functionality, as obviously there’s no real life comparison. I mean it LOOKS like something made for a badly made fanfic. Case in point: There was another person years ago who constructed a whole room to look like it was out of Trek complete with just as accurately functioning LCARS displays but looking almost exactly like they were made for Trek itself.

In any case #18… there’s plenty of browser add-ons for Firefox and even for Safari now that will allow just what you want for Facebook. Good luck on getting Facebook to ever make an iPad app though -_- or even optimize the iPhone app for iPad. Anyways, Facebook can go blank it. Facebook=Skynet….or in Trek terms, Facebook = The Borg Collective.

“We are the Facebook. You will be assimilated. We will add your sociological and psychological distinctiveness to our own. Your social circle will adapt to service us. Resistance Is Futile.” LOL

3- bananen, actually.

kewl stuff. Wonder if LCARS is easy to use. Something’s gotta replace my TomTom, cause it’s driving me nuts. City, then street, then number. And don’t even beat yourself up trying to get it to search for a place by name… you’ll be wrapped around a pole before you find that folder.

The Enterprise-Z just looks like the JJprise after the crew overindulges in trips to Budgineering.

Awesome LCARS interface! He should really sell this, I always wanted an LCARS format for my computer that actually works well. :D

I’d like to pimp out the place with one of those LCARS set ups. That would be nice.

Cool that European Trekkers do stuff as well,lol! Of course,that would never happen here in Norway,crap country that it is.

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone in the US! Wish I was there! Have FUN y’all! J-R!

Good jobs!

From an aesthetic point of view, yeah, the LCARS above do leave a bit to be desired, especially with regard to mimicking Trek (which was the point of the endeavor anyway), but it’s always cool to see functional LCARS. The below link features some cool design guidelines that are a good starting off point.

http://www.bracercom.com/tutorial/content/CoherentLCARSInterface/LCARSCoherentInterface.html

@20 CmdrR

Sie sind richtig. Entschuldigung.

@boborci: writing completed?

Wow, I love the LCARS interface. Hope he has one in each room.

Enterprise Z goes down in flames…Spock (dryly): “Oh. The humanity.”

26 Captain Dunsel — meant that as a way to share the joke. Of course, being a Trekkie, you know I must pick nits.

30 CmdrR
Of course. But I figured you probably wouldn’t understand if I answered in Giamon… or Stroyerian.

I cannot get enough of that LCARS interface! So amazing.

We can do LCARS with 21st Century tech; imagine what 24th Century tech could do. In the 1980’s, LCARS touch screens were considered ultrafuturistic, but in reality (or in this timeline), by extrapolation, we could imagine how 300 years from now interactive displays will be three-dimensional, or even four-dimensional (+the dimension of time) (don’t ask me how that would work).

Perhaps displays will directly interface with the human brain through the visual cortex and appear exactly as they should be with as few extraneous data or features as possible. Perhaps parts of it will fold into an uberdimension, leading to some kind of functionality based on probability principles or something of which we cannot even dream in this century.

Perhaps we will dialogue mentally with the displays, controlling routine functions with just a thought. We are already working on machines that can read the signals created by our brain so as to allow manipulation of prosthetic-like devices.

The future is an amazing place, assuming that humanity will survive and evolve appropriately to reach it.