Update: Now with AxoTools 16.2, there’s an easier way!
Every technical illustrator, it seems, eventually runs into a situation where a surface they’re drawing doesn’t exactly match the top, left, or right views. If one edge of a rectangle that defines that surface coincides with the X or Z axis, there are at least two ways to project that angled face. Let’s say you want to add a dial or knob to this control panel.
In conventional drafting, you’d draw what’s called an auxiliary view for the tilted panel, then mathematically calculate the locations of the panel’s elements in the axonometric (or isometric) view. One way might be called the “rotate and force-fit” method.
Here’s a sequence of steps that shows how that works, and illustrates the reason those four “Rotate” and “Unrotate” items were added to the flyout menu.
Of course, the axis of the ellipse is at a different angle than any axis, so here’s a method that uses axonometric logic to reverse-engineer the projection of that surface in order to use the Extrude tool to accurately draw the cylindrical shape of the knob.
After this technique, be sure to restore your axonometric projection to the previous settings!
New tools are currently in progress for AxoTools, but until they’re available, this should help you get through some of those unusual situations.
When working on the Extrude tool for AxoTools, it became obvious that users need a tool to quickly trim paths for hidden line removal. Of course, AxoTools has options for fills and excluding hidden lines when extruding, but that’s only one situation. That tool is now here as the Trimmer tool in the current version of Cutting Tools. Here’s how it works:
With the Trimmer tool, simply click on a path or drag through several paths to delete a portion of it between intersections with other paths. If one direction doesn’t intersect, it removes the path to its end point.
Have you ever needed to change the stacking (drawing) order of objects and used menu commands like Object > Arrange > Bring Forward or dragged them up or down in the Layers panel? Every once in a while, the order you need corresponds to the objects’ position on the page. With the latest version of ToolShed (16.3.7), there’s a new feature in the menu Object > Stacking Order… that addresses that.
Your alignment choices are, obviously, listed in the dialog shown above. The default stacking is bottom-to-top, but the checkbox in the dialog changes that to top-to-bottom. As you work, it helps to keep in mind Illustrator’s coordinate system, which is by default that positive values grow to the right or down. This may be confusing when stacking by the bottom edge, which is again measured from the ruler’s origin, not from below.
The following plugins are now compatible with Adobe Illustrator 2021:
AxoTools
Cleanup Tool
Concatenate
Cutting Tools
Nudge Panel
Select Menu
Square Up
ToolShed
Other plugins may work as well. Just copy them into into the Plug-ins folder of Illustrator 2021. There’s no guarantee, but they probably will work. The first time you launch Illustrator with the older plugins present, you’ll see a dialog like this for each plugin:
Click the button “Yes, load it” to load the plugin. Illustrator will remember your choice, so you will not be asked again.
If you have trouble with an older plugin, simply remove it from Illustrator’s Plug-ins folder.
It’s an known issue that the panels may be larger than their contents. It’s easiest to fix this by setting the UI scaling to its smallest settings in Preferences > User Interface. More information in this post regarding UI issues in Windows may apply.
As always, please let me know if you encounter any problems with the plugins, or if you care to offer suggestions for improving them. I like feedback!
The process of doing isometric/axonometric drawings in Adobe Illustrator really hasn’t changed much since the mid 1990s, or even since the late 1980s, something I hadn’t fully realized until doing the first AxoTools video. How many of you can relate to this?
Working in Illustrator 88, I would project art to isometric by manually doing the scale-rotate-scale method. When the QuicKeys keyboard macro utility came out, it automated that process and also allowed me to change the constrain angle by pressing an otherwise-unused function key.
In 1994, when Illustrator 5 added support for plugins, I wrote one called Isometric that I shared free on my web site. It added menu items to project art to and from isometric planes, and to create box and cylinder primitives. Does anybody recall using this? I also wrote a free companion plugin Isometric Line Tool to draw straight lines in isometric, which was around quite a while and later merged into AxoTools.
In 1998, Illustrator 8 added recordable Actions, which was easier to maintain than updating the plugin as Illustrator’s API became more complicated. It also added Smart Guides, which I relied on when QuicKeys had compatibility issues with operating system changes.
About this time, Adobe had a simple 3D app called Dimensions (not the same as their current Dimensions product) that exported shapes to a file Illustrator could open. This app was the origin of the “Off Axis” projections I use in my Actions and in the current AxoTools presets. I used Dimensions in my first locomotive cutaway rendering. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. Some of you may use SketchUp in that same way today.
Has anybody found Illustrator CS’s 3D effect actually useful for scale isometric drawings? I had high hopes when it appeared, but it never proved truly useful to me.
Hot Door’s CADtools has had support for isometric for several versions now, and in recent years supports axonometric views. I’ve found CADtools indispensable for technical drawing, but knew there had to be an easier way to assemble the pieces.
So for over 30 years, the process has been to project a shape to an isometric plane, then manually move it into position. This worked OK when one plane served as a sort of floor plan that other shapes could be snapped to, but it didn’t work well for most things I drew, like vehicles, machinery, and electronics. In order to get objects positioned correctly, I often drew a temporary “armature” with projected lines along two or three axes.
I’d actually envisioned today’s AxoTools plugin decades ago, using virtual armatures to position art and tools with custom constraints to move art along any defined axis. Using geometric formulas by Ron Kempke, it became possible to add support for any axonometric projection showing the left, right, and top views. Why it took so long, I’m sorry I can’t answer. I hope you agree that doing axonometric drawing in Adobe Illustrator is significantly easier than ever with AxoTools.
Schools and colleges may be eligible for a significant discount on the Productivity Pack set of plugins. For example, the University of Wisconsin would qualify for at least one free corporate license covering 25 students across all UW campuses in the state. A private school such as Marquette University High School would qualify for at least one studio license covering 10 students at their Milwaukee campus at 50% off.
To apply, simply fill out the form on the main menu at Support > Educational Discount.
I was recently contacted by Iván Gómez about doing videos on my plugins. Iván is a certified Adobe instructor in Columbia who has done many other videos on various aspects of Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, which are available on YouTube. He chose to do a video on AxoTools, which is very informative. I have an AxoTools video in progress also, but it won’t be available until after the next AxoTools update featuring a few new tools.
If you’re interested in AxoTools, please watch this as it demonstrates some important concepts:
Overview of isometric, dimetric, and trimetric projections
Setting and changing the orientation of your projection
Placing and moving common reference points
Projecting using buttons in the panel, using menus, or custom keyboard shortcuts
Moving objects in the axonometric view by dragging in an orthographic view
Using the AxoDraw tool to draw constrained lines
Using the AxoScale and AxoRotate tools to modify projected art
Viewers can also benefit from a coupon code shown in the video, good for 20% off any Graffix plugins during August 2020.
Thanks, Iván, for doing the video I must confess I should have done months ago!
All Graffix plugins for Adobe Illustrator are now optimized for Illustrator 2020 for both Mac and Windows, and available for download, with the exception of ServerLock. That update is in progress. IsoTool is not updated, but its functions are now built into AxoTools — The drawing tool from IsoTool will continue to work for free in AxoTools without licensing.
