jeudi 28 août 2014

Making clearer instructions

Hello friends :) Bafflement and confusion seem to be my lot when confronted with some papermodel instructions (and I'm not talking about those that have no instructions; they're in a league of their own!)

Now, for ages past, the convention in engineering and similar technical drawings is to present the views of your model as follows; side (or profile), front, and top (or plan view). The same particularly goes for any drawing of a complex geometric shape, as in Fig.1. This is a wholly conventional and understood (to my mind, anyway) method of showing parts or shapes, and needs nothing added except helpful 'scrap' views of particular things to note.

Fig.2 shows an isometric view of the part. Again, this is a wholly conventional and understood method of presenting such a view. Extrapolated, any assemblage of parts that join together also use the same isometric view, as in Fig.3. Easy to understand (Fig.3 also shows a side view of the part as assembled) and if consistently used throughout your instructions will help the builder, who won't be confronted by random drawings of parts, each of which is rotated in a different plane and bearing no relation to any adjoining piece....

Fig.4 shows two complex parts that are joined, their shapes being similar and there being no obvious 'right' way to put them together when looking at the built parts. 4a shows how this shouldn't be presented, because I for one don't enjoy three dimensional puzzles! By the addition of some 'marker' on your drawing, such as air vents, portholes, whatever (outlined in red in Fig.4) it is immediately apparent what goes where.

And you will note that I refer to 'drawings', because to my mind any such instructional diagrams should be drawn and not 'lifted' straight off a computer program. It may look nice on the screen, but a sinlge-shade-of-grey multi-faceted computer generated picture of your model bears little relation to how it actually looks in your hands, and the novice builder may not have the know-how to interpret all those facets and folds (which don't appear on the model anyway....)

And these are just my opinions; what do I know ;)

Plumdragon




Attached Images





File Type: jpg 2.jpg (68.0 KB)






Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire