Orthographic projection

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Orthographic projection is a handy technique for communicating much of what you need about something. In an orthographic drawing, you draw a face-on, side-on, and top-down view of an object, allowing you to see the same shape from different perspectives in a single drawing.

The neat thing I found about an orthographic drawing is how, when laid out as in the sketch, the dimensions of one view can be extended into the adjacent views, helping to keep the drawing accurate. I definitely felt some satisfaction and enjoyment working on an orthographic projection drawing on a large drawing board with a built-in ruler.

While orthographic projections can be helpful for accurately representing an object, they struggle a bit with hollows and some other features that can make them start to look a bit fiddly.

Perhaps combine an orthographic view with an isometric projection.

Published 8 Apr 2017

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