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Introduction
Humankind designs and constructs tools, furniture, vehicles, buildings and other structures with deliberate precision. And while it is relatively easy to draw objects using only lines and circles, these shapes are insufficient to represent the constructs of our world. Although it is possible to represent some simple curvatures in two dimensions with a linear projection of an arc or a circle to an ellipse, a parabola, or a hyperbola, these too are insufficient in their lack of complexity. Within these limitations, gross representation of curved lines is not sufficient for engineering purposes. In the words of Professor Thomas French, the writer of the authoritative Engineering Drawing series of textbooks in the early 20th Century:
The engineering draftsman has a greater task [than the artist]. Limited to outline alone, he may not simply suggest his meaning but must give exact and positive information regarding every detail of the machine or structure existing in his imagination. Thus drawing to him is more than pictorial representation; it is a complete graphical language, by whose aid he may describe minutely every operation necessary and may keep a complete record of the work for duplication or repairs.
[9, p. 1]This need to depict and design complex curvatures with accuracy begat the use of the French Curve in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Applications
The demand for technical drawing actually surged with the Industrial Revolution in the middle of the 19th Century.
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