Exploring 3D space with a computer – Part 3: building models from plans
Adrian Oldknow
2D images from models
From the pull-down menu for `Document' select the `Add Page.' option. This will give a menu offering many different types of 2D representation.
Let's have a look at the `Technical Drawing European Layout (A4)'.
You may need to select `scale ½' from the `Display' menu to see all three views - front and side plans and elevation - on the screen at the same time. Can you work out how each of these three views was made from the original stack of bricks? Can you make any different 3D models with bricks which would still have the same plans and elevation? You could print out the set of three 2D views for a model you have made and offer it as a challenge to your pupils to design a 3D model consistent with these views. You could ask them to make their own models, produce the plans and elevation and offer them as a challenge to other pupils. Ruth Sharpe and I wrote about the use of such plans and questions with infants in the 1986 Micromath Vol 2 No 3 article: ` Multilink, mathematics and micros '.
