TLE30
Architectural Drafting

An architectural drafting or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building (or building project) that falls within the definition of architecture. Architectural drawings are used by architects and others for a number of purposes: to develop a design idea into a coherent proposal, to communicate ideas and concepts, to convince clients of the merits of a design, to enable a building contractor to construct it, as a record of the completed work, and to make a record of a building that already exists.

Architectural drawings are drawn according to a set of conventions, which include particular views (floor plan, section etc.), sheet sizes, units of measurement and scales, annotation and cross referencing. Conventionally, drawings were made in ink on paper or a similar material, and any copies required had to be laboriously made by hand. The twentieth century saw a shift to drawing on tracing paper, so that mechanical copies could be run off efficiently.

An isometric drawing is one of the example of architects drawing. Isometric uses a plan grid at 30 degrees from the horizontal in both directions, which distorts the plan shape. Isometric graph paper can be used to construct this kind of drawing. This view is useful to explain construction details (e.g. three dimensional joints in joinery). The isometric was the standard view until the mid twentieth century, remaining popular until the 1970s.



Isometric drawings are designed to show a three dimensional view of an object. The width and depth are both drawn at 30 degree angles.

The following guide will present to you the ways to create an isometric drawing.
You can use a picture of a Three-View drawing to get the dimensions. Using those dimensions you can make a isometric drawing.
Start with the front view and draw the construction lines that you would see from the front view. Make sure you draw these lines back at a 30 degree angle to the left. These would be light lines that overlap that give you an idea of what the drawing would look like. This is not the actual drawing of the object.

Then draw all the depth lines at a 30 degree angle back to the right. Connect all the lines that would be on the top view that you can now see in the isometric.

Now, once you have all the construction lines done, go over and darken the lines that should be the visible lines, the outline of the object. You have to think in 3D to do this. There are not going to be any hidden lines on an isometric drawing.