The Process of Making an

Orthographic Drawing

James Somers
3/2/10

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 Table of Contents

Audience and Scope Page 3

What is an Orthographic Technical Drawing? Page 3

Step 1: Getting a Perspective Page 4

Step 2: Drawing a Sketch Page 5

Step 3: Finalizing the Drawing with Dimensions Page 6

Conclusion Page 7

Works Cited Page Page 8

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Audience and Scope

The purpose of this article is to inform high school students that are interested in
becoming engineers of the process of creating an orthographic technical drawing
and the practicality it has in their future field of work. The process that I will
describe can be found in many textbooks in basic engineering. I will try to make
this explanation simple, yet informative, because many high school students will
change their mind about their future career, so I don’t want to get too in depth
and bore them.

I also thought about how I liked to learn as a high school student, and realized
that I liked to get right into the process and then learn the practicality of the
process at the end. This is why I set-up my paper the way I did.

What is an Orthographic Technical Drawing?

An orthographic technical drawing is a technical document that represents an

object’s size and shape by a series of two dimensional drawings. Many of you
have seen orthographic drawings before in either cartoons or movies. They are
usually portrayed as drawings on blue paper (“blue prints”) in movies and
cartoons. In figure 1, you can see an example of an orthographic drawing.

Figure 1: An orthographic drawing of the object in the top right

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An orthographic drawing has three key steps that engineers must take in order
to create one of their own. The three steps are:
Get a perspective
Sketch the object
Finalize the drawing and add dimensions

Step 1: Getting a Perspective

The first step engineers must take in creating their own orthographic drawing is
to get a perspective of the object that they want to draw. Engineers must view
the object as if it were two-dimensional.

Most orthographic drawings only show three views (top, front, and right side)
due to symmetry of most objects. The bottom view can be determined from the
top view as well as the other non-drawn sides can be determined from the other
drawn sides. An engineer would only need to draw any of the other side views if
one of the other differs from the other three.

Engineers often view the object as if they were taking a snap shot of the top,
front, and right side of the object. If they do this, they would only be able to see
the two dimensional object that is needed to draw. Figures 2 and 3 show how to
view a three-dimensional object in 2D.

Figure 2: 3D Image of a TV Remote Figure 3: 2D Top View of the Same Remote

As you can see in figure 3, the TV remote looks as if it’s only an odd-shaped oval
with other two-dimensional shapes on it. Once the perspective is established,
the next step is to sketch the object.

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Step 2: Drawing a Sketch
Sketching the object is an important step in creating an orthographic drawing.
First, engineers look at the object that is going to be drawn (if it has already
been invented), and sketch the object to somewhat scale so that no lines are not
forgotten. This is important because one forgotten line can turn one object into
a completely different object. For example, if a can was supposed to be drawn
in which the top can be pulled off, but a line was forgotten where the can should
be cut, the can will require a tool rather than just your hand.

If an engineer is in the process of inventing an item, drawing a sketch is even

more important. Sketching the idea will give people a picture to see instead of a
description to hear. Sketching the object is also important so that people can
see how the image is going to look before actually putting all the time into the
finished project. Figure 4 shows an example of a sketch of a cell phone.

Figure 4: A sketch of a cell phone before the finished project

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Step 3: Finalizing the Drawing and Add Dimensions

The final step in the process of creating an orthographic technical drawing is

finalizing the drawing and adding dimensions. First things first, an engineer has
to complete the drawing.

The engineer must first draw the image to scale. If he is doing this by hand he
will be sure to use the proper tools (T-square, compass, engineering scales,
etc.). However if they chose to do this with a computer, they would use Auto
CAD. Once the image is drawn, they add dimensions so that the person viewing
the image knows the exact size of the object. Figure 5 shows an example of a
finished orthographic technical drawing.

Figure 5: A Finished Orthographic Drawing with Dimensions

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Conclusion
Practicality in today’s life is always important when trying to learn a process
because everyone wants to know how the process is going to be used. One of
the main reasons for learning how to create an orthographic drawing is because
everything is computerized in today’s day and age. If a part, such as a custom
engine part, is broken and needs to be fixed by another company, an engineer
must draw it first. This is because the company then feeds the drawing into the
machine and the machine makes the part to the exact specifications of the
drawing.

There are other reasons to learn how to create an orthographic drawing such as
invention. If an engineer is trying to get an idea across to a company, he must
draw an orthographic drawing so that the company can understand how it looks
and so that they can create it. For example, an engineer has an idea for an
object and needs a physical prototype. In order to get the prototype
manufactured he must draw an orthographic drawing of the object, and present
it to the manufacturing company so that they can build it.

An orthographic technical drawing will be used in every engineer’s schooling

process and in most engineering careers. They will be used as long as inventions
are still being made and custom machined parts are still needed. It is necessary,
as engineers, to learn this skill and apply it to problems of today and the future.

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Works Cited Page
Figure 1

http://www.we-r-here.com/cad_07/tutorials/level_3/images/isometric_dwg.gif

Figure 2 and Figure 3

Pictures taken by James Somers

Figure 4

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/145/429228992_67b106d66f_m.jpg

Figure 5

http://www.me.metu.edu.tr/courses/me113/Documents/Exercise_4/orthographic
_2.jpg

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