Customer Reviews

The Complete Technical Illustrator (McGraw-Hill Series in Computer Science)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
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Overall, I find this book very good. It covers detailed step-by-step information on how to go about creating technical illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. Of course the book assumes you KNOW Illustrator. (If you never used it, don't start whining that it doesn't cover how to use Illustrator!) You'll be guided to create illustrations using standard isometric, dimetric, trimetric, and perspective views, using step-by-step details about how to setup the view and how to create and position ellipses and other object correctly based on the view. The book covers how to create correct and compelling line illustrations, and later, how to apply color and shading for realistic looks. The book also covers illustration techniques using 3ds Max and AutoCAD, but most of the book is focuses on Adobe Illustrator. (You can use any version of Illustrator, by the way.) The only negative comment I have is that there are quite a few typos. I didn't expect a book not to have typos, I mean it does happen, but for a $100 book there are a lot of it! Despite the errors, I would still highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to create correct technical illustrations because of the invaluable advice and detail given. I would like to thank professor Duff for writing this book! (And I'd recommend the publisher, McGraw-Hill, to actually use a spell checker before they publish such an expensive book!)

I bought the book and was Looking forward to becoming a technical illustrator.
I was already in design school and this is what i wanted to focus on.

well the book is great there are many techniques, from using illustrator for projections
from draft files, and also some CAD examples as well. With orthogonal layouts, axonometric views, and line renderings.

But the overall field of technical illustration is changing. Many of the techniques are being automated
with new technology like CADprocess from IsoDraw. With a click of a few buttons, a CAD draft can be projected to an illustration in less than 3 mins. Something any desktop publisher can do.

I was really looking forward to putting these technical skills to use but, its being phased out and needed less and less.
Some photo tracing is done here and there but i can't make a career out of this now. I'm shooting for Infographics in general, not just focusing technical illustration but more along the lines of visual journalism.

But the book is good if you just want to learn some stuff.

Iso Draw CADprocess
[...]

This is not a book of WOW illustration effects.
And it is not referring to latest versions of software - I believe, the year of edition is 2004. It refers to using Illustrator,3DMax and CAD and using techniques specific to these software programs, but this is not the main purpose of this textbook (I believe).
If you're looking for (very) thorough info for things, like orthographic views, all kind of projections, such as isometric, dimetric, trimetric, precise scaling and shearing when make drafting in these projections (old school!) and theory behind it - this is THE book. A lot of examples of drafting of mechanical parts (actually, it is ALL mechanical parts, some other machinery and cars - no architectural or geological drafting),
Also info on perspective techniques and grid, tips for rendering technical drawings of mechanical parts (lights, shadows, color) in illustrator, tracing photos - for making tech illustrations.
On disc it has AxonHelper (calculates accurate size scaling, when make a drafting in different projections and course exercises. (there is more - I didn't need to explore it any further for my purposes - it is a big book!). Disc can be installed on both - PCs and Mac computers.