David Stipes David Armstrong Stipes is a expert who has worked , predominantly as visual effects supervisor , on the " Star Trek " spin - off series , which entailed the last two seasons of , the last four seasons of , the first two seasons of , and the entire run of . David Stipes had , as an outside contractor , already made two early uncredited contributions to " The Next Generation " , first as a stop motion control artist , operating the parasitic being puppet , featured in the first season episode , and subsequently as a photographer when he filmed the enlarged Borg cube model section for the self - regenerating sequence in the second season episode . However , it was not until late 1992 that he was hired full - time by the " Star Trek " franchise as the fifth visual effects supervisor . That circumstance arose due to the fact that one of the alternating senior visual effects teams , that of Gary Hutzel and Robert Legato , was transferred at the conclusion of the fifth season to the new " Star Trek " production , " Deep Space Nine " . To fill the gap left by them for the remaining two seasons of " The Next Generation " , Stipes was hired while being teamed up with David Takemura , who was on that occasion promoted from the junior position of visual effects associate to the senior position of coordinator , for season six , while being teamed up with newcomer Joe Bauer for season seven , after Takemura transferred to " Deep Space Nine " . Upon the conclusion of " The Next Generation " , the Stipes / Bauer team smoothly transferred to the new " Voyager " television series , on which it worked for most of its first two seasons . Near the end of season two of that series , David Stipes again transferred to another series , " Deep Space Nine " , starting to work for that production near the tail end of its season four , remaining there , teamed up with Hutzel , for the remainder of that series ' run . ( ) Stipes was one of the very first members of " Star Trek " s production team to fully realize the potential of CGI and , being its strongest advocate , has been instrumental in the transition from miniature photography to CGI in the franchise , already supervising one of its earliest applications in the episode . Stipes has cited overwhelmingly practical reasons for his stance , " " When I started at Star Trek in 1992 , by the third script I saw that I could not deliver what the writers were asking for using the established approach to the visual effects . The approach to the visual effects work was based upon models and motion control photography . We were limited by track lengths and sizes of the models . I began looking at the software available at the time . As I remember , the leading software was about $ 40 , 000 a module and you needed three or four different modules to possibly do any film quality work . " " His name appeared on several set artwork throughout the series . His work on " Star Trek " has earned him the two Emmy Award s and two additional nominations , as well as an International Monitor Award in . Stipes has authored a series of articles for working to inform its readership about the various aspects of the creation of visual effects . Career outside " Star Trek " . Prior to his " Star Trek " work Stipes worked on science fiction television shows such as " Battlestar Galactica " ( with Dan Curry ) , " Buck Rogers in the 25th Century " ( both 1979 ) , " Galactica 1980 " and " V : The Final Battle " ( 1984 ) . His motion picture credits include " Equinox " ( 1970 ) , " Caveman " ( 1981 ) , " Creepshow " ( 1982 ) , " The Stuff " ( 1985 ) , " Real Genius " ( 1985 ) , " Night of the Creeps " ( 1986 ) , " Deadly Weapon " ( 1989 ) , " Arena " ( 1989 ) , " Ernest Goes to Jail " ( 1990 ) , and " The Lawnmower Man " ( 1992 ) . From 1981 through 1992 , Stipes worked as an independent contractor while operating his own company , " David Stipes Productions " , he ceased operating when he was hired full time on " The Next Generation " in 1993 . The movie , on which he worked as visual effects supervisor , provided some unexpected after - the - fact " Star Trek " connections . Apart from having worked with Ron Thornton and Steve Burg , the studio model of the alien spacecraft , used in he movie , would three years later be loaned out to " The Next Generation " for use as the Cleponji in . The model ended up in the possession of the Stipes family . After his tenure on the " Star Trek " franchise David Stipes moved to Arizona to accept a position as a teacher at the Art Institute of Phoenix , only sporadically working for the motion picture industry during that time . Around 2010 he moved back to California and returned full time to the motion picture industry having worked since then on the spoof science fiction series " Voyage Trekkers " ( 2011 ) , and the movies " Blackout " ( 2013 ) and " Mantecoza " ( 2014 ) . " Star Trek " awards . Emmy Awards . Stipes received the following Emmy Award wins and nominations in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects :