Blender 2.8 for technical drawing: Render 2D drawings for architecture, engineering, and design

Have you ever thought about using Blender 2.8 to create technical drawings? With the Blender 2.8 for technical drawing book, you will learn the techniques and tools required to render your objects as if it was a drawing coming from CAD software. In Blender, you will find a set of tools and options that will allow you to add strokes and styles to objects, which will look like all types of technical drawings.

In the book, you will learn all the steps necessary to create a floor plan design from scratch. You will learn how to set up units and work with precision drawings to build walls, windows, and doors. Later you will even add dimension lines to the objects in Blender.

Besides using Blender 2.8 to create technical drawings like a floor plan, you will also create true isometric renders from 3D objects, which also works as a technical drawing.

Book about Blender 2.8 and technical drawing

What will you learn with Blender 2.8 for technical drawing? The book explains how you can prepare Blender to produce and render technical drawings based on 3D models, which you will create using standard Blender tools. If you place the camera in a top visualization and make an orthographic projection, it will look like a technical drawing.

By applying some NPR techniques from FreeStyle you can the render look precisely like a technical drawing, and even save the results in a vector format (SVG).

Here is a list of all the chapters:

  • Chapter 1 – Blender basics for technical drawing
  • Chapter 2 – Rendering lines for technical drawing
  • Chapter 3 – Drawing in 2D using Blender
  • Chapter 4 – Line Styles and Line Sets
  • Chapter 5 – Doors, Windows, and CAD Blocks
  • Chapter 6 – View Layers and annotations
  • Chapter 7 – Dimension lines and symbols
  • Chapter 8 – Isometric cameras and SVG export

Blender basics for technical drawing

From the user interface to the shortcuts used to manipulate the scene and also some basic options to create and edit 3D Models. We will cover topics like:

  • How to start with Blender for technical drawing
  • Navigation and selection shortcuts
  • Using orthographic views for technical drawing
  • Drawing objects in 2D
  • Precision drawing options and units settings
  • Shading modes for 2D drawing

Rendering lines for technical drawing

As a starting point to create technical drawings with Blender, we must understand how it can render lines generated from 3D Objects. The trick to create those lines is using a tool called FreeStyle. In this section you find information about:

  • How to render lines for technical drawing
  • Preparing a project for rendering
  • How display only lines for rendering
  • Preparing the background for rendering
  • Working with Collections
  • Selecting edges for rendering

Drawing in 2D using Blender (Floor plan)

In this chapter, we will start the design process of a floor plan. The objective is to create a prepare a floor plan design for print or display in a monitor. You will learn in this section:

  • Drawing a floor plan
  • Creating the walls
  • Making curved walls
  • Working with doors and windows
  • Drawing the stairs
  • Creating the external area
  • Preparing the floor plan for rendering

Line Styles and Line Sets

In FreeStyle, you have the Lines Sets that will work like layers from CAD software, which will create “virtual groups” where we can apply unique settings for rendering. You will learn how to create those sets and make them work for a technical drawing:

  • Using line settings from FreeStyle
  • Working with Line Sets
  • Line Styles for technical drawing
  • Line Styles for technical drawing
  • Line Styles management
  • Reusing Line Styles

Doors, Windows, and CAD Blocks

The drawing we created in the last chapter has a lot of elements that still make it look like a technical drawing. However, a few objects are still needing work like doors and windows. For windows, we will have to add the frame representation, which is simple to create and replicate. You will learn in this section:

  • How to fix the stairs objects that are not rendering
  • Adding a frame to each window
  • Creating doors and arcs
  • Adjusting the arc and door origin points
  • Duplicating and mirroring the doors
  • Using FreeStyle settings to render only the arc
  • Creating a double-sided door
  • Importing CAD blocks
  • Converting CAD blocks to use in Blender
  • Cleaning up CAD blocks for FreeStyle

View Layers and annotations

If you render the project using settings from FreeStyle, all objects will appear with an outline and no solid color. Regardless of materials and shapes, you will only get an outline. What if you want to render shaded objects mixed with a technical drawing?

That is when Blender View Layers will become incredibly useful, and you will learn how to use View Layers to create unique visuals for your technical drawings. Here is what you will learn about View Layers:

  • Adding annotations for technical drawing
  • Materials for annotations
  • Working with View Layers
  • Composing View Layers
  • Replicating annotations
  • Disabling composing for rendering

Dimension lines and symbols

In this chapter, you will learn how to create and setup that type of object and add the text information with the respective dimensions for each line. Besides a dimension line, you will also learn how to create a common symbol for a floor plan, which is the level symbol:

  • Creating a dimension line
  • Expanding dimension lines with the Snap
  • Creating internal dimension lines
  • Adding text to dimension lines
  • Creating architectural symbols

Isometric cameras and SVG export

In Blender, you can apply settings to a camera that will allow you to make isometric renders from any object. That will help you create a popular type of visualization for projects that need a perspective view of any object with no distortions from the camera. And to finish our book, you will learn how to save technical renders from Blender as vectors using the SVG file format. Here is what you will learn:

  • Rendering hidden lines
  • Creating an Isometric render
  • Making four isometric cameras
  • Rendering to SVG
  • Saving SVG files
  • Working with multiple cameras

Book details

  • Release date: November 2019
  • Edition: 1st
  • Pages: 000 (eBook)
  • Pages: 272 (Paperback)
  • Autor: Allan Brito
  • Blender version used: Blender 2.81 Beta
  • ASIN Kindle: B081PV8PC2
  • ISBN paperback: 000000000

Buy now from Amazon:

  • Available in eBook format (Worldwide)
  • Available as a paperback (some regions)

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