Tips on forming an Isomec drawing using
CorelDraw
Isomec, produced by Roger Hill, is a suite of clipart drawings of Meccano parts using the program known as CorelDraw, and has become a widely used means of illustrating structures and mechanisms built from Meccano. The drawings are extremely accurately made, and it is possible to draw whole illustrations with great precision and clarity. Isomec can be obtained from MW Models.
1. Aim to produce an isometric drawing whose front is at the
right front of the screen and whose back is to the left rear. The
drawing will thus slope upwards and to the left at an angle of 30
degrees to the horizontal.
2. Import parts to the screen from the file menu using the 'import'
option in the file menu.
3. Select the view of the part that fits the illustration.
Usually this means rotating the part through 120 degrees. It may
also mean performing a horizontal or vertical stretch. Discard the views that are not wanted by
performing an 'ungroup', highlighting the unwanted views and
discarding them.
4. Use the 'duplicate' button to make extra parts.
5. Ensure that parts are in the right order, and it is best to
start with parts at the back and work to the front of the drawing.
If a part need to be added, it is often hard to insert at the
right place. It can be temporarily grouped with a neighbour then
ungrouped and will be adjacent to that part. I can be 'moved one
back (or forward)' from the 'arrange' and 'transform' menu.
6. When aligning parts, temporarily use high zoom and perhaps 'wireframe'
view. To assist in alignment, use the blue dotted line that can
be brought onto the screen. It can be changed to 30 and -30
degrees angle by clicking on the end of the line (a very useful
feature) and 'adding'.
7. Use exploded views to show construction, and use lines to
indicate where one part fits to another. These can be inserted
with the drawing feature, and can be carefully aligned under high
magnification and the 'shape' tool which highlights the end of a
line allowing it to be moved to a very precise position.
8. It helps enormously to make up a special file with nuts and
bolts, washers and small rods and screwed rods, and alignment
dotted lines and save it with the parts files. This can be easily
brought onto the screen and any particular part selected and the
rest discarded. Even better, make a special file with nuts and
bolts, rods etc and marker lines and save it as a .CDR file to be
used each time you make a new drawing.
9. It is highly recommended that you constantly use the 'save'
button, as there is nothing worse than spending hours on a
drawing and then lose it.
Michael Adler - July 2001