Drawing 3D Object in Adobe Illustrator

This Tutorial will show you how to draw simple objects with a three-dimensional appearance. At ?rst we will draw arrows indicating a movement in 3D space. Adobe Illustrator 7.0 was used to create the following graphics, but all procedures are valid for newer versions (up to CS2), too. Basics of Isometric Projection. Isometric projections are a two-dimensional drawing of three-dimensional objects, created by a parallel projection. Objects look like having a volume, without actually having one. The main characteristics of an isometric projection are: - there is no vanishing point - lines that are parallel in reality will be parallel in the drawing - same lenghts in reality will be drawn at the same length, without any shortening caused by a perspective view. An isometric drawing is created along the axes representing the 3D space: When the basic shape of the object (here: a cube) is drawn, the correspondig faces can simply be created by a double 120° rotation of the shape. Isometric objects can be created out of 2D shapes using the Distortion Tool. Since this tool produces non-proportional distortions (resulting edges have different lengths), this error must be corrected by applying a known scaling factor before distorting the shape. Now select the Distortion Tool. Enter a distortion angle of 30° along the vertical axis. This setting means, that vertical lines are just moved vertically, while horizontal lines are tilt by 30°. Without the preceding scaling, the horizontal lines would get longer than the vertical lines at this moment.