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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Photoshop gets involved with rhinos, criminals, ancient math, and the microscope.
Shuster, Robert. Adobe Magazine (1999). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Adobe Photoshop
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The InfoGraphics mailing list is a forum for anybody who is interested in the design of diagrams, maps and charts.
Yahoo. Resources>Mailing Lists>Technical Illustration>Charts and Graphs
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Infographics: Being and Doing (Part II)
Organizing the available information and coming up with a plan for presenting it is the first and probably the most difficult stage in designing any infographic.
Rajamanickam, Venkatesh. uiGarden (2007). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Review: Information Ecology: Bayer's Book of Maps
In 1949, Herbert Bayer, the Austrian graphic designer who taught at the famed Bauhaus, embarked on an incredible information design challenge. The 'World Geo-Graphic Atlas' (1953) is a benchmark example of information design, fusing vibrant data-intensive displays with a strong multicultural and environmental message.
Burgos, Nate. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Reviews>Technical Illustration
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A blog of information about information graphics.
XPLANE. Resources>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Blogs
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Information Graphics at the Boston Globe: From Concept to Execution 
Over the past decade, information graphics have become an increasingly important part of newspaper coverage. While graphics have traditionally played a supporting role to content determined by reporters and editors, some newspapers take a more aggressive approach in reporting and creating information graphics. At the Boston Globe, a conscious effort has been made to encourage artists to report the material for their graphics, and to seek greater collaboration with reporters, editors, and photographers. In our best efforts, this allows us to discuss how to bring words, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs together in evocative information packages. The Globe's specialized beats include four reporters who work on health-related issues full time. Because our eight-person graphics department is responsible for nearly all diagrams, charts, and graphics in the newspaper, it is difficult for us to match a reporter's expertise in any one area.
McNaughton, Sean. Technical Communication Online (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Information Design>Technical Illustration
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Inside Technical Illustration: The Information Portal for Technical Illustration
The Information Portal for Technical Illustration provides free information on graphics formats, illustration tips and tricks, and a gallery, in 5 languages.
ITEDO Software (2001). Resources>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Interactive Non-Photorealistic Technical Illustration 
Current interactive modeling systems allow users to view models in wireframe or Phong-shaded images. However, the wireframe is based on the model's parameterization, and a model's features may get lost in a nest of lines. Alone, a fully rendered image may not provide enough useful information about the structure or model features. Human technical illustrators follow certain visual conventions that are unlike Phong-shaded or wireframe renderings, and the drawings they produce are subjectively superior to conventional computer renderings. This thesis explores lighting, shading, and line illustration conventions used by technical illustrators. These conventions are implemented in a modeling system to create a new method of displaying and viewing complex NURBS models. In particular, silhouettes and edge lines are drawn in a manner similar to pen-and-ink drawings, and a shading algorithm is used that is similar to ink-wash or air-brush renderings for areas inside the silhouettes. This shading has a low intensity variation so that the black silhouettes remain visually distinct, and it has a cool-to-warm hue transition to help accent surface orientation. Applying these illustration methods produces images that are closer to human-drawn illustrations than is provided by traditional computer graphics approaches.
Gooch, Amy. University of Utah (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Interactive Technical Illustration
A rendering is an abstraction that favors, preserves, or even emphasizes some qualities while sacrificing, suppressing, or omitting other characteristics that are not the focus of attention. Most computer graphics rendering activities have been concerned with photorealism, i.e., trying to emulate an image that looks like a high-quality photograph. This laudable goal is useful and appropriate in many applications, but not in technical illustration where elucidation of structure and technical information is the preeminent motivation. This calls for a different kind of abstraction in which technical communication is central, but art and appearance are still essential instruments toward this end. Work that has been done on computer generated technical illustrations has focused on static images, and has not included all of the techniques used to hand draw technical illustrations. A paradigm for the display of technical illustrations in a dynamic environment is presented. This display environment includes all of the benefits of computer generated technical illustrations, such as a clearer picture of shape, structure, and material composition than traditional computer graphics methods. It also includes the three-dimensional interactive strength of modern display systems. This is accomplished by using new algorithms for real time drawing of silhouette curves, algorithms which solve a number of the problems inherent in previous methods. We incorporate current non-photorealistic lighting methods, and augment them with new shadowing algorithms based on accepted techniques used by artists and studies carried out in human perception.
Gooch, Bruce, Peter-Pike J. Sloan, Amy Gooch, Peter Shirley and Richard Riesenfeld. University of Utah (1997). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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An Introduction to Visualisation
Visualising things makes them tangible and brings them into shareable form. Visualisation brings ideas to life and helps understanding. Visualisation techniques help elicit, communicate and analyse ideas and concepts.
Joe, Phillip. Design Council (2005). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Visual Rhetoric
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In technical illustrations, labeling is often needed to denominate specific parts. Here, it is important to remember certain details that can really make a difference. This is especially true if the file is to be converted at a later time.
ITEDO Software. Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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El lenguaje escrito no es más que un caso particular del lenguaje visual. En realidad hay muchos lenguajes visuales que parecen tener reglas en común. Pensar en el lenguaje visual nos puede ayudar a transmitir nuestros mensajes de forma más efectiva.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2003). (Spanish) Articles>Language>Visual Rhetoric>Technical Illustration
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The numerous stylistic devices in Technical Illustration allow you to visualize technical coherences. An important, but very often underestimated, method in Technical Illustration is the omission of lines, which often helps to display the desired information more clearly.
ITEDO Software. Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Isometric
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Los mapas conceptuales son instrumentos de representación del conocimiento sencillos y prácticos, que permiten transmitir con claridad mensajes conceptuales complejos y facilitar tanto el aprendizaje como la enseñanza. Para mayor abundamiento, adoptan la forma de grafos.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2004). (Spanish) Design>Information Design>Technical Illustration>Charts and Graphs
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When working with technical illustrations, you must consider perspective. The following article will provide you with some useful information on working with both parallel and true perspective.
ITEDO Software (2002). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Isometric
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Medical Tables, Graphics and Photographs: How They Work
An examination of a random sample of four medical journals--The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine--reveals that one-fifth of the space of articles in medical science is devoted to an average of three tables and three flow charts, graphs, or photographs. Given these figures, the absence of discussion of visuals in the literature on medical communication may seem puzzling. But the puzzle is easily solved: our basic education gives us a coherent vocabulary for talking about prose, but no coherent vocabulary for talking about tables and visuals. Once we have this vocabulary in hand, we make another step in the direction of an explanation of the nature of communication in the medical sciences. We may note that understanding the meaning of a medical article is not just a consequence of understanding its texts; it is a consequence of understanding all its meaningful components working together--verbal, tabular, visual.
Gross, Alan G. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Biomedical
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Multimodal Analysis: An Integrative Approach for Scientific Visualizing on the Web
The Multimodal approach offers technical communicators and science writers an analytical tool to synthesize the meaning made in the connections across communicative modes. This multimodal synthesis can help technical communicators better exploit the meaning-making potential of multimodal combinations and understand the needs of future generations shaped by their increasingly developed multimodal literacy.
Maier, Carmen Daniela, Constance Kampf and Peter Kastberg. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Illustration>Biomedical
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The infographics weblog is a running collection of links to infographics found on the web through my own research and the submissions of many individuals.
Nixlog. Resources>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Blogs
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A Non-Photorealistic Lighting Model For Automatic Technical Illustration
Phong-shaded 3D imagery does not provide geometric information of the same richness as human-drawn technical illustrations. A non-photorealistic lighting model is presented that attempts to narrow this gap. The model is based on practice in traditional technical illustration, where the lighting model uses both luminance and changes in hue to indicate surface orientation, reserving extreme lights and darks for edge lines and highlights. The lighting model allows shading to occur only in mid-tones so that edge lines and highlights remain visually prominent. In addition, we show how this lighting model is modified when portraying models of metal objects. These illustration methods give a clearer picture of shape, structure, and material composition than traditional computer graphics methods.
Gooch, Amy, Bruce Gooch, Peter Shirley and Elaine Cohen. University of Utah (1998). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Perspective Illustrations in CorelDraw
There is space for non-specialist technical communicators to provide attractive and relevant artwork.
Info Action (2000). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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Perspective Models in Technical Illustration
Various perspective models are used in technical illustration. Each of these models offers specific advantages. In the following section, you will learn background information on these models and learn their proper application.
ITEDO Software (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration
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One of the most effective methods of creating a technical illustration is the photo-tracing technique.
ITEDO Software (2001). Articles>Documentation>Technical Illustration
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Photoshop Ghosting Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Technical Illustrations
A "Ghosted", "Phantom View", "Transparent", or "See Through" technical illustration is one that renders the exterior skin of an object transparent in order to see the interior workings. This Photoshop tutorial will cover the basic techniques used to render a ghosted technical illustration using the airbrush technique.
Hulsey, Kevin. Kevin Hulsey Illustration (2006). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Adobe Photoshop
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Illustrations for procedural documents should show actions from the mental perspective of people carrying them out. Illustrations also should take into account the twodimensional displays of printed documents and computer screens by orienting critical body positions and movements across displays.
Krull, Robert. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Documentation>Technical Illustration
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Planning and Editing Tables and Charts
Reviewing and suggesting changes to tables and charts are important responsibilities of editors. Improvements a knowledgeable editor might suggest include the following: revising table titles, selecting the best table design, converting landscape to portrait orientation, adopting a more effective style, choosing the right chart form, and guarding against misleading charts. Editors who have had little training or experience in this area will benefit from attending specific courses and studying the texts listed in the bibliography.
Mann, Gerald A. STC Proceedings (1996). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration>Charts and Graphs
