Is the role of the technical illustrator dead?
The last 25 years have experienced extraordinary changes within technical publications departments. The functions associated with technical author and technical illustrator seem to have changed significantly but are they both required now. It could be that the technical illustrator is a dying vocation.
When I started my career as a technical author both of these roles were clearly identified.
The words needed were being created by the technical authors and recorded by the typing pool and also the technical illustrators generating drawings and also plans. All this was then brought together by the make-up artists. As time has gone by these functions have changed considerably and several have disappeared entirely. Advancements in technology and software program have removed the actual need for the typing pool and also the make-up artist is a uncommon and endangered species. Is the function of technical illustrator going to become an additional of these disappearing professions?
Usually the technical illustrator would have been college qualified and they would produce their isometric drawings employing pen and ink. Mistakes and any kind of required changes would certainly end up being really difficult to apply.
The very first noticeable change came with the arrival of the Computer and commonly obtainable software for example Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. The expertise continued to be exactly the same, the technical illustrator still required to understand the way to create isometric drawings but their work tool now consisted of a Computer as opposed to drawing board, pen and ink.
With the Personal computer growing to be a lot more powerful and typical inside the workplace Itedo developed the very first specialist illustrating software program "Isodraw". This might be argued as the very first step in software replacing the trained technical illustrator, with a little bit of training on the software program non-illustrators could now produce simple isometric illustrations. Nevertheless, the role of the technical illustrator was still safe for the time-being.
The overall accessibility to 3D modelling software offered another threat to the technical illustrator. This made the process of making isometric illustrations almost automated. Fortunately for the technical illustrator the software program costs were excessively high and also the quality of the images were not the same as professionally created isometric drawings so firms had been hesitant at first to use the software. Nonetheless, these model files could be imported into visualisation/animation software like 3d studio max and 3d viz creating them extremely beneficial. Nonetheless, the resulting CGIs and animations have been much more of a threat to graphic designers than technical illustrators.
Ironically the first ever software program developed especially for technical illustrators produced the biggest threat to their existence. Itedo launched "IsoDraw Cad Process". The production of illustrations could be totally computerized by importing native 3D design files directly into IsoDraw Cad process. Which means that any person trained on the use of the software program application could produce the illustrations needed.
And also to complicate matters, the price of the software had fallen dramatically making it readily obtainable to firms watching their net profit. Since many of the modelling software programs now combine rendering engines, this has made it possible to generate animated graphics and photo-realistic CGIs which are possible to update simply by editing the 3D design file, thus making the creation of animated graphics a cost efficient option.
So has the technical illustrator perished? He's surely on the endangered list but until companies are prepared to enable technical publications departments access to their design files rather than sending photos for being traced then the technical illustrator will survive though their days might be numbered
About the Author
Matt has worked as a technical author and illustrator for over 25 years following an apprenticeship in Electrical Engineering with one of the major UK rail companies.
Further information about technical publications can be found at www.technical-publications.co.uk
3D-Carpenter
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