Isometric Construction

Isometric drawing is way of presenting designs/drawings in three dimensions. In order for a design to appear three dimensional, a 30 degree angle is applied to its sides. Here is how easy it is to set this up and create!

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To make creating isometric drawing easier, set up your Construction Guides to be at 30°. Do this under the Preferences>Smart Guides. Turn on the Construction Guides check box and add 30 and -30 into the fields. 

Using the Line Tool, draw a line and rotate it -30° in the Transform or Properties panel. 

Select the line then OPTION (ALT) click and drag the line down a bit. Use COMMAND + D to duplicate the line several times.

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Select all the lines and use the Flip icon in the Properties Panel to flip the set. Move the lines over each other to create a 30° grid.

Select all the lines and choose View>Guides>Make Guides. This takes all the lines and turns them into a grid structure to allow points and lines to snap to them.
​Make sure your Smart Guides are on, your Guides are visible and the Snap to Point is turned on. All of these are under View>Guides.

The easiest way to draw isometric panels or shapes is with the Pen Tool. The points will snap right to the grid and the Smart Guide hints will show you when the points snap.

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To draw anything flat, follow the grid and complete the shape. 

To draw a vertical panel, you will need to follow the lines top and bottom, then create vertical lines. 

These basic horizontal and vertical shapes will be used to create many different constructions.

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When creating the panels, if there is a Stroke applied, the corners will be sharp and create odd points.

Set the shapes to have rounded corner strokes in the Stroke panel. This only applies to a stroke, not the shape. 

This only applies to a stroke, not the shape and solves the problem with a stroked object having odd overlapping corner points.

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Duplicate the panels and send them backwards to create the outer back panels.

Duplicate the side panels to create the roof panels. Draw a vertical line from the center of the front panel up past the rood point.

Use the Direct Selection Tool to select the top path of the roof panel and move it until the corner touches the vertical line. 

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Use the Direct Selection Tool to select the top path of the back roof panel and move it until the corner touches the vertical line. Delete the line when done. 

Select the shapes and select the Shape Builder Tool (Shift+M). With the Shape Builder Tool, drag across the three shapes to create one shape.

Fill the shape with a color and you have the end panel of the house.

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Another way to create shapes is to draw them shape then use the Skew Tool to skew it 30° horizontally or vertically.

With the shape selected, select the Skew Tool and double-click on the skew Tool to call up the dialog box. Click the Preview button to see what is Changing. Set the shear angle to 30° or -30° and click on horizontal or vertical shear to get the anlge desired. 

This is how you can add windows and doors without drawing and snapping to the grid. 

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Add some gradient fills, create more details and you have created an Isometric construction!