A pictorial projection is a type of technical illustration that shows several faces of an object at once. Such drawings are used by any industry that designs, sells, manufactures, repairs, installs, or maintains a product. Axonometric and oblique pictorial drawings use a parallel projection technique and are used frequently in technical documents, sales literature, maintenance manuals, and documentation supplements in technical drawings. Perspective pictorial drawings use a converging projection technique and are found more commonly in architectural drawings.

Perspective drawings are the most realistic types of drawings used in engineering and technology. A perspective drawing creates a pictorial view of an object that resembles what you see. It is the best method for representing an object in three dimensions.

Pictorial drawings do not have the limitation of multiview drawings, which show only two dimensions of the object in each view and must be mentally combined to form a 3-D image of the object. This chapter explains the projection theory and standard practices used to create axonometric, oblique, and perspective drawings.