Technical illustrations: choosing the right perspective

Isometry, military projection or vanishing points – technical illustration knows various ways to project an object. Each of them is focused on revealing the object in the most natural view possible and to increase the users comprehension of the product.

Text by Lutz Dieffenbach

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Technical illustrations: choosing the right perspective

Image: © AnnaElizabethPhotography/istockphoto.com

Depending on the purpose of the presentation and the selected target group, a product can be presented using a number of projections in technical documentation. This article provides an overview of these projections, as mentioned in the standards series DIN ISO 5456 for technical drawings.

First, we should answer the question why a technical writer should show his readers a projected illustration of an object when the production drawings are already available. The answer is obvious: A projected representation helps the user to better imagine the object and therefore to understand it better.

On the other hand, if the technical writer was to show the object only in the form of a production drawing, the user would have major difficulties in correctly identifying the geometrical body. It is difficult for the user to derive a perspective from the views alone. Moreover, by selecting a ...