History of Engineering Graphics

Design Documentation

Before the invention of the photocopier and the development of drawing standards, design sketches were duplicated by redrawing them. In many cases, the artist making the copy made serious errors, resulting in a drawing that made no sense. Compare the following to see an example:

This is the original design sketch. The function is clear, and there is enough information to make this machine.

Here is a copy. There are many errors, and it's impossible to figure out what this is!

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo was probably the greatest engineer the world has ever seen. Here are a few sketches from his notebooks.

Here is an early example of an exploded assembly view.

Here are some conceptual sketches for a novel bearing design. Leonardo wrote the notes in mirror image!

Multiview Drawing

Durer was one of the first people to use multiview drawings, as shown below.

This drawing includes some section views.

Steam Engine

This is a drawing of one of the first steam engines.

ES029a/b - Engineering Graphics
Faculty of Engineering Science, The University of Western Ontario
© 2002 R. O. Buchal, J. Galsworthy, D. J. Harman

Maintained by R. O. Buchal.