Introduction to One-Point Perspective chapter 6
These diagrams show a simple technique to help you deter-
mine the proportions of your object as it recedes into space.
You can apply this technique to either a vertical or horizontal
plane, as shown.
The first diagram uses the horizontal plane. To draw this dia-
gram, first draw a triangle, and then draw some converging
lines within the triangle. These lines correspond to the sides of
an object that you may be drawing (such as a tabletop or the
top of the kitchen island shown previously), which are reced-
ing to the vanishing point. Draw a horizontal line across two
lines in the bottom on the left. Now you have a top surface of
an object. The red line represents the width of that top surface
of the object, from corner to corner. If you repeat this diagonal
with the same angle, so that it is parallel to the first and all
subsequent diagonals all the way to the vanishing point, you
can see how the top surface of the object becomes smaller
and smaller in width and length.
In this diagram, imagine that the square nearest to you is the
back of a chair in perspective. Notice that if you move that
chair farther away from the viewer and closer to the vanishing
point, along the trajectory that is mapped out, it becomes
smaller. Its proportions are correctly portrayed as the red diag-
onal lines. Just as in the previous example, all of the diagonal
lines are parallel to each other. In this example, the diagonal
lines form the correct width of the chair back. You can drop a
vertical line where the diagonal meets the top side of the
chair. (The top side is parallel to the bottom side of the chair.)
An example where this technique is useful is when you are
drawing windows on a wall of a building that is receding into
the distance.
Invent Your 3D World
Vanishing Point and Eye LevelViewer or Vantage PointVanishing Point and Eye LevelViewer or Vantage Point