PARALINE DRAWINGS
Para line drawings commun icate the three-di mensional
nature of anobject or spatial relationship in a single image.
Hence, t hey are also called single-view drawings to
distinguish them from the m
ultiple and related views of
plans, sections, and elevations. They can be distinguished
from the other type of single-view drawing, linear
perspective, by the following pictorial effects.
- - - Parallel lines, regardless of their orientation in t he
subject, remain parallel in the drawn view; they do not
convergeto vanishing points as in linear perspective.
___ _ _. Any linear m
easurement pa rallel to one of the three
major axes~along axial lines-can be made and drawn
to a consistent sca le. Axial lines naturally form a
rectangular grid of coordinates that we can use to find
any point inthree-d imensional space.
,.
Nonaxiallines refer to those lines that arenot pa rallel to
any of the three principal axes. We cannot measure
dimensions along these nonaxial lines, nor can we draw
them to scale.To draw nonaxial lines, we must first
locate their end points using axial measurements and
then connect t hese points. Once we establish one
nonaxial line, however. we can draw any line parallel to
that line, since parallel lines inthe subject remain parallel
inthe drawing.
/
• Para linedrawings present either an aerial view looking
down on an object or scene, or a worm's-eye view looking
upward. They lack the eye-level view and picturesque
quality of linear perspectives. They represent what we
know rather t han how we see, depicting an objective
reality that corresponds moreclosely to the picture in
the mind's eye than to the retinal im of linear
age
perspective.
74 /ARCH ITECTURAL GRAPHICS