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Perspective Drawing by Numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

F. L. Carter*
Affiliation:
The Lady Spencer-Churchill College of Education, Wheatley, Oxford

Extract

The use of matrices in connection with geometric transformations is now well established in the literature devoted to the teaching of “modern mathematics” in schools. A possible way of motivating an interest in projective transformations is to be found in the problem of constructing an accurate perspective drawing of an object as seen from a selected viewing point. One of the first artists to master the technique was Albrecht Dürer, and the woodcut by him (Figure 1) shows clearly the basic idea, that such a drawing is a projective transformation from “3D” space onto a plane. These transformations can be represented by 3 = 3 matrices. This note gives an elementary derivation of such a matrix representation, and shows how it may be used to construct perspective drawings.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1969

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References

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