Journal for Geometry and Graphics, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 165-179 (2001)

Constructional Graphics Application in Engineering Computer Graphics

Zlatko B. Gradinscak

RMIT University, School of Aerospace,
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
PO Box 71, Bundoora, VIC 3083, Australia
email: zlatko.gradinscak@rmit.edu.au

Abstract: In studying the drawing there is even today a tendency to concentrate upon what is marked on a piece of paper, and to forget that much of drawing that was marked in the past on the actual stone or wood. As the education and books on drawing were increasingly developed and used by academia, the drawing techniques became theoretically supported by developed geometrical principles extracted from basic empirical constructions. Geometrical concepts that provide developments of such empirical constructional methods, applications of which were utilised in the pre-Descriptive Geometry era, are denoted as constructional geometry. As the construction of 3D parametric solid models becomes recognised as the skill modern engineers need to posses, the ability to spatially construct and manipulate virtual geometrical elements will unavoidably become an elementary part in the engineering educational system. With the application of a vector space in computer graphics, the introduction of graphical techniques that conduct 3D problem solving by spatial construction instead of the planar projection becomes essential for engineering spatial graphics. Discussion of this need for introducing graphical concepts that deal with spatial relationships in a computer graphics vector space and subsequent application of such a constructional method in modern engineering computer graphics are presented in this paper.

Keywords: Theoretical graphics, computer aided geometric design, engineering computer graphics

Classification (MSC2000): 51N05

Full text of the article will be available in mid of 2003.


[Previous Article] [Next Article] [Contents of this Number]
© 2002 ELibM for the EMIS Electronic Edition