20 Things You Never Knew About Star Trek: Insurrection
8. It Was The First Star Trek Film That Didn't Use Practical Models
Insurrection was the first Star Trek film in which all of the space-based scenes were achieved using CGI. Though a practical model of the Enterprise-E had been constructed for Star Trek: First Contact, it was not used for this film, save for reference photos to build the CGI model.
The Enterprise-E is a mostly impressive construct, though the years have been a little unkind to it. At the time, it was cutting edge. It was built by Santa Barbara Studios, who also built the rest of the starships - the S'ona, the Scout Ship, and the Captain's Yacht. However, they failed to archive the ships, and used their own software. The company has since gone out of business, which meant that the original designs were all but lost.
They had also worked on elements of Deep Space Nine and Voyager, as well as the opening scene with the Enterprise-B and the champagne bottle in Star Trek: Generations.