You and your friend sit back to back. One of you read out a net to make a 3-D shape, while the other copies it and sketches or builds the described obje

Our drawing surface is a paper, which is a flat surface. When you draw a solid shape, the images are somewhat distorted. It is a visual illusion. You will find here two techniques to help you to draw the 3-D shapes on a plane surface.

Here is a picture of a cube. It gives a clear idea of how the cube looks, when seen from the front. You do not see all the faces as we see in reality. In the picture, all the lengths are not equal, as they are in a real cube. Still, you are able to recognise it as a cube. Such a sketch of a solid is called an oblique sketch. How can you draw such sketches? Let us attempt to learn the technique. You need a squared (lines or dots) paper. Initially practice to draw on these sheets and later on a plain sheet (without the aid of squared lines or dots!) Let us attempt to draw an oblique sketch of a 3 × 3 × 3 cube (each edge is 3 units).

In the above oblique sketch did you notice the following?