The classification of Kleinian surface groups, I: Models and bounds

We give the first part of a proof of Thurston's Ending Lamination conjecture. In this part we show how to construct from the end invariants of a Kleinian surface group a ``Lipschitz model'' for the thick part of the corresponding hyperbolic manifold. This enables us to describe the topological structure of the thick part, and to give a-priori geometric bounds.