As a huge Star Trek fan (they don't call me Captain Mark for nothing!), I was interested to read in the Google Earth blog that someone had invented a 3D model of the USS Enterprise for Google Earth. The downside though (and there is ALWAYS a downside in everything) is that it takes forever for the model to load in GE. The model has 42 decks so I found that it goes faster if you disable the loading of all decks above deck 20. When everything up to deck 20 is loaded, then begin loading the rest 5 decks at a time. But if you try to load all 42 decks at once, the loading slows to a complete crawl.

The model loads in the middle of the Pacific Ocean probably because, as the Google Earth blog points out, if it loaded over land, the Google Earth program would slow down even more. Plus once it is all finally fully loaded, you can't really do much with the model except admire it and move it around the screen.

Nevertheless, this is a very cool model. I wish I had the talent to do something like this. If I could, I wouldn't stop with the Enterprise. I would be doing 3D models of the entire Klingon battle fleet and all of the Federation's space stations! So then again, maybe it's good that I can't do stuff like this!!! ;-)