Technical Illustration is the use of illustration to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations often take the form of component drawings or diagrams (usually isometric or orthogonal), and are sometimes viewed as a subset of graphic design or visual rhetoric.
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Florence Nightingale's Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams 
Florence Nightingale is usually pictured as an angelic nurse tending to British soldiers in military hospitals during the Crimean War. Although Nightingale was indeed a tender of soldiers, she was also an administrator, advocate for the common soldier, and proponent of the use of statistics and information design. This article examines Nightingale's rose diagrams, which she designed following her service as the director of nurses at a field hospital in the Crimean War. When the war ended, Nightingale was asked by the queen to write a report on the poor sanitary conditions and make recommendations for reform. When, after six months, the government did not act on the reforms, Nightingale decided to write an annex to the report, in which she would include her invention, the rose diagrams. Nightingale's ultimate success in persuading the government to institute reforms is an illustration of the power of visual rhetoric, as well as an example of Nightingale's own passionate resolve to right what she saw as a grievous wrong.
Brasseur, Lee. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Technical Illustration
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Gears: A Simple Procedure to Create a Complex Shape 
Drawing gears is now very simple using CorelDraw.
Broz, Donald. Broz and Dian (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Gefahrensymbole für Technische Dokumentation 
Die Symbolsammlung bietet kostenlos Symbole zur Verwendung in Sicherheitshinweisen bzw. Gefahrenhinweisen an. Sie enthält Dateien im GIF- und EPS-Format. Die Dateien können einzeln oder gesammelt in ZIP-Archiven heruntergeladen werden. Derzeit sind die folgenden Kategorien vorhanden: (1) Gefahrenzeichen oder Warnsymbole, (2) Verbotszeichen, (3) Gebotszeichen, (4) Symbole gemäß Gefahrstoffverordnung (GefStoffV) (5) Rettungszeichen (6) Brandschutzzeichen
Ratz, Günter. CPTec GmbH (2005). (German) Resources>User Interface>Technical Illustration
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El proyecto genoma humano (PGH) genera un volumen de información inabordable sin el uso de medios sofisticados para su tratamiento. La visualización de información tiene aquí un gran campo de aplicación.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2002). (Spanish) Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Charts and Graphs
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Geographic Information Systems
Explains GIS (geographic information systems), which capture and display geographically referenced information) and suggests ways that technical communicators can become more involved with this technology.
Pettit Jones, Colleen. Intercom (2003). Articles>Information Design>Technical Illustration>Geography
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Glossary Of Technical Illustration Terms
A concise reference guide to technical illustration terms.
Hulsey, Kevin. Kevin Hulsey Illustration. Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Glossary
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Good, Fast and Cheap: Producing Computer-Generated Isometrics from Engineering Drawings 
It is possible to produce a computer-generated isometric illustration of sufficient quality for most applications directly from a scanned engineering drawing. The process described in this article uses Corel Trace and Corel Draw, but it can be adapted to suit other drawing or CAD programs, and it can generate sophisticated isometric illustrations.
Morris, John M. Technical Communication Online (1997). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Isometric
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Los grafos son la representación natural de las redes, en las que estamos cada vez más incluidos. Exploramos qué son los grafos, para qué sirven y algunas reglas para dibujarlos bien.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2004). (Spanish) Articles>Reviews>Software>Technical Illustration
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The Graphic Artists Guild is a national union of illustrators, designers, web creators, production artists, surface designers and other creatives who have come together to pursue common goals, share their experience, raise industry standards, and improve the ability of visual creators to achieve satisfying and rewarding careers.
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Graphic Barriers: Enhanced Comprehension of Patient Education Material
In this paper, I will demonstrate that when choosing graphics for patient education material, document designers should consider empirical research on memory of pictures and mental processing of graphs. It has been shown that comprehension of patient education materials is often impeded by text written at reading levels too high for the patient population. Graphics have been used to aid in overcoming the deficits of complex text. However, graphics too can be too advanced for the client to understand if designers do not consider audience and cognitive processing of images.
Terrell Willis, Sharese. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Illustration>Biomedical
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Graphics and Invention in Engineering Writing
This study reports on the use of graphics by engineers as a method of stimulating the writing process (rhetorical invention). Information presented here comes from working engineers, based on a questionnaire developed after informal conversations and then administered to 15 participants in private industry, with questions about specific writing genres and types of graphics. Results show that graphics have a powerful function in stimulating writing ideas. Although individual writers' preferences in graphics are strong, patterns could be seen in (1) overall number of graphics types used by each writer, (2) specific types of graphics used by each writer based on the writing genre, and (3) the most common types of graphics used overall.
Hutto, David. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Engineering>Technical Illustration
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One of the nice things about technical writing courses is that most of the papers have graphics in them — or at least they should. A lot of professional, technical writing contains graphics — drawings, diagrams, photographs, illustrations of all sorts, tables, pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, flow charts, and so on. Once you get the hang of putting graphics like these into your writing, you should consider yourself obligated to use graphics whenever the situation naturally would call for them. Unlike what you might fear, producing graphics is not such a terrible task — in fact, it can be fun. You don't have to be a professional graphics artist or technical draftsperson to produce graphics for your technical writing. There are ways to produce professional-looking graphics with tape, scissors, white-out, and a decent photocopying machine.
McMurrey, David A. Illuminati Online. Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Graphics and Web Design Based on Edward Tufte's Principles
This is an outline of Edward Tufte's pioneering work on the use of graphics to display quantitative information. It mainly consists of text and ideas taken from his three books on the subject along with some additional material of my own. This page is in text only format: in order to understand the concepts you need to read the books because the concepts cannot really be grasped without the illustrations, and current video monitor technology is too low in resolution to do them justice. His work has been described as 'a visual Strunk and White.'
University of Washington-Seattle (1999). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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A collection of technical illustrations submitted and collected by professional technical illustrators.
VisualJournalism. Academic>Course Materials>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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La guerra, como las demás actividades humanas, es susceptible también de ser motivo de la visualización así como de usarla para sus propios fines. En este artículo vemos algunos ejemplos.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Design>Information Design>Technical Illustration
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The Guide to Effective Illustration: Images for Presentation and Publication
An important part of modern communication is the use of images, both with oral presentations and in publications, to convey the essence of the author's message. As the methods of preparing, transmitting, and presenting images proliferate, we are all challenged to make the best use possible of each imaging technology.
Walworth, Vivian, Mary McCann, John McCann and Louis Rosenblum. Society for Imaging Science and Technology, The (1999). Books>Information Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Illustrations and technical graphics are essential to any technical documentation. They assist users' understanding by simplifying complex content through clear, understandable and effective information. A primary objective of technical documentation is to ensure that users use products effectively and safely. Graphics and illustrations assist in accomplishing this objective. Striking the right balance between text and graphics enables documentation to be effective support to product use. This article recommends a few guidelines and best practices to adopt when working with illustrations and graphics in technical documents.
Chava, Uday. Indus (2005). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
The GNSI is a non-profit organization that sets high professional standards, provides opportunities for professional and scholarly development, encourages and assists member networking, and promotes itself to potential clients and the general public.
GNSI. Organizations>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Scientific Communication
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Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness
Lists wacky, bizarre, surreal and otherwise strange examples of technical documentation, particularly illustration.
Barefoot, Darren K. Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness (2005). Humor>Writing>Technical Illustration>Technical Writing
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Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness
Welcome to my Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. On this page, I list wacky, bizarre, surreal and otherwise strange examples of technical documentation, particularly illustration.
DarrenBarefoot (2003). Humor>TC>Technical Illustration>Localization
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The elusive screen, captured at last.
Kvern, Olav Martin. Adobe Magazine (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Screen Captures
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How To Capture a Screen Shot of your Desktop or the Active Window in Windows
Have you ever pressed the PrtScn (print screen) key on your Windows keyboard and wondered why it was there since it never seemed to do anything? Well, it does do something! It copies an image of your screen onto the "clipboard," ready to paste into any graphics program. These steps show you how to use it along with Windows' standard image editor, Microsoft Paint, to save an image of your screen.
Chastain, Sue. About.com (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Screen Captures
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Illustration and Language in Technical Communication
Many technical documents present information both graphically and verbally. While much is known about the verbal tools of technical professionals, technical graphics have been less fully examined. Here the drawings of a United States patent are examined revealing a system for organizing and presenting visual information that is analogous to commonly-used models for organizing and presenting verbal information.
Donnell, Jeffrey. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2005). Articles>TC>Technical Writing>Technical Illustration
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Illustration Software Tutorials
Tutorials and techniques for drawing and working with illustration software in general. Also tutorials for specific programs including Illustrator, CorelDRAW, Freehand, Xara, Canvas, and more.
Chastain, Sue. About.com. Resources>Software>Technical Illustration
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An under-the-hood look at Illustrator's versatile unite filter.
Zeitman, Randy. Adobe Magazine (1995). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Adobe Illustrator
