Talk:Isometric projection

message: :::::Actually the 35.264º rotation doesn't get you an isometric view. The correct angle is acos(1/sqrt(3)) aprox. 54.74º so the information is the page is incorrect at the moment. An easy way to check is to do this in opengl and look at the angle of a cube makes with the screen X-axis. You will get ~40º instead of the expected 30º for isometric projection.
:::::See https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/181651/why-when-i-do-an-isometric-projection-do-i-get-a-dimmetric-view 135.180.33.83 (talk) 05:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: 2024

message: "The projection used in videogames usually deviates slightly from true isometric due to the limitations of raster graphics. Lines in the x and y axes would not follow a neat pixel pattern when drawn in the required 30° to the horizontal."
I think that it has more to do with the fact that "3/4" view is easier on the eyes than true isometric. True isometric view, while great for mechanical part schematics, often leaves viewers feeling disoriented. -SharkD 06:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind that. -SharkD 07:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I still feel it's not the only reason. SharkD 17:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons for using dimetric in pixel art

message: Back in the day, people would talk about games which were "three fourth's perspective."  Does anybody know if that is an accurate synonym for isometric? --Adamrush 16:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I beleive it is. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The term "isometric" is typically inaccurate when used to describe the type of projection used in video games (see above discussion topic). However, the common misuse of the term is synonymous with "3/4 perspective". -SharkD 05:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think "isometric"'s common usage is also synonymous with the term "axonometric projection". SharkD 17:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, sorry, I didn't see this discussion before I changed the picture descriptions - it would be very helpful if we could back such things up with proper sources. If it is just common usage by (pixel) artists, then I agree that "3/4 perspective" is just as good as "1:2 isometric perspective" - but using quotation marks as (likely, until we find a source) neither is the proper term (and this is still the encyclopedic article about isometric projection). --Allefant 19:30, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is an article that mentions 3/4 view. And, no, 3/4 does not refer to any particular pixel ratio. SharkD 20:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. As I said on the talk page of 3/4 perspective, a more plausible meaning is that 3/4 view is just a very general term, meaning it's neither frontal/side/top-down view. What do you think about just calling the pictures with the 1:2 games "isometric" (with quotation marks)? --Allefant 21:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. SharkD 22:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  3/4's perspective 

message: Any two distances that are equal in a 3 dimensional object will be equal in isometric projection.
I wasn't sure about this statement, so I stuck it here instead.  Anyone know for sure? Algr 02:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, now here is a funny situation.  After finding enough references that I was satisfied that that statement was true, I then tried an experiment and proved it wrong!  (It doesn't work for a 3D object with diagonal lines or circles.)  Does no original research apply in the negative?  Can doing nothing violate NOR? Algr 20:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the above statement is only true when the distances being measured lie along one of the three cardinal axes (actually, relative to the camera). I think this question is better answered in the Orthographic Projection article. -SharkD 05:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: limits of isometric projection 

message: Here is an ... link to an [excellent] article discussing the use of orthographic projection in SimCity 4. For some reason [the link] was removed in a revision... -SharkD 19:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see it was moved to the Trimetric Projection article. -SharkD 07:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Excellent link

message: We could use some example images of this perspective being used in engineering drafting. I know I used it in high school. -SharkD 06:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Usage examples

message: The 'See also' list was replaced with a 'Graphical projection' table. How do you create those? -SharkD 01:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind I figured it out. -SharkD 02:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Graphical projection widget

message: The addition of the two new 3D rendered images is becoming problematic. Are there any more suggestions to remove certain images and consider new arrangements? In terms of the former, I'm thinking about removing the pixel art TV (now that it's devoid of any real purpose after the redundant caption is gone) and one of the two game screenshots. ╫ ２５ ◀RingADing▶ 16:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The crowding will be diminished if the rotation images are cropped.  If SharkD doesn't do it, then I'll do it myself in a day or two, per User_talk:SharkD (losslessly, of course) -- AnonMoos 17:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I cropped the images so that they're square. Go ahead and reduce the size of the thumbnails if you need to (though it might become difficult to read the angle measurements). I'd just as well keep the TV image. -SharkD 23:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I cropped them further from 600x600 to 464x432 (which was more what I originally had in mind), and correspondingly reduced the width of the thumbnails by a ratio of 464/600 (or from 256 to 198 pixels). AnonMoos 02:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I created a composite image consisting of the two images placed side by side to make comparison easier. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do this losslessly. The resulting image is a little more grainy than the originals. SharkD (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's a little crowded now 

message: It's hard to compare true isometric projection with video-game quasi-"isometric" projection unless you have both of them in there.  Maybe they should be set side by side (though I'm not sure exactly where the best place for that would be...). AnonMoos 14:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I created a composite image consisting of the two images placed side by side to make comparison easier. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do this losslessly. The resulting image is a little more grainy than the originals. SharkD (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reason for having both images in the article

message: I updated the SVG image showing the isometric cube. Wikipedia's SVGtoPNG converter is a bit buggy, so there are errors introduced that aren't in the source file. Hopefully, WP will update their converter sometime in the near future. -SharkD 15:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's been over a year, and Wikipedia's converter is still buggy. I tried loading the image in InkScape to see if I could convert the arrowheads to paths, but InkScape is buggy too. Adobe's viewer is still the only one that displays the image properly. Unfortunately, my SVG skills are too rusty to try and recreate the arrowheads by hand in a way that works for all viewers/editors. SharkD (talk) 05:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Image update

message: There's some disagreement as to whether the game Fallout is isometric or not, and whether it should be listed. Though it is in fact trimetric, it is referred to frequently as isometric. Also, only two games in the list are really isometric. What people really mean when they say "isometric" is that a game uses orthographic projection--which Fallout certainly does. Should we then not include all the rest? SharkD 23:19, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Listing games that are not isometric

message: I consider computer desktop icons as being pixel art; therefore, I think that section is redundant and should be removed.SharkD 17:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Computer desktop section

message: I'm having trouble figuring out what form of graphical projection is used in parts of the Ultima series (starting with Ultima VI). Is it dimetric? SharkD 16:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind. I figured out it's axiometric projection. SharkD 03:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ultima

message: I notice that this 3D rendered image (and the similar one in videogames.) is NOT isometric.  All the lines clearly converge to vanishing points.  This seems important and should be noted somehow.  Perhaps a corresponding image could be made that actually is isometric.  (Although this might be tricky to do in a 3D rendering program.) Algr 09:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The image itself is not supposed to be isometric. It's supposed to demonstrate how to orient the camera when capturing an isometric image. SharkD 09:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to explain the pictures better, for those who don't read the article text but just the pictures, like I do myself often with other articles :) Probably it could be formulated more elegantly. --Allefant 11:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "The blue vector points towards the camera position which would result in an isometric view of the cube when looking towards the origin."  I think this is still a problem.  A 3D renderer would never give you an isometric image, no matter where you put the camera.   Unless there is a specific "isometric mode" there would always be vanishing points, and objects would always grow as they approached the camera. Algr 19:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The text just besides the picture says "starting from an orthographic projection relative to an object's face" - so it should be clear we do not use any perspective projection. But of course, there might be a way to formulate this more clear.. --Allefant 20:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, you could theoretically achieve an isometric projection in a 3D renderer by placing the camera infinitely far away and increasing the focal length (e.g., zooming) to an infinite amount. Check out this animation of Escher's Waterfall as an example of a camera placed at a very great distance, with a very great focal length (here is the text description of the animation). This doesn't apply to all forms of parallel projection, though. E.g., you can never achieve oblique projection using just a camera. SharkD (talk) 07:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found this image of Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn which appears to be composed of computer rendered sprites. The projection used in the game is oblique projection; I'm not sure what tricks they used to manage this. SharkD (talk) 05:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, both OpenGL and Direct3D can do orthographic and oblique projections, so games have it easy just rendering in either (no idea what UO uses, might be hand-drawn?) --Allefant (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia isometric cube 3.jpg is NOT isometric 

message: I wonder where and when this term began to be mistakenly applied to video games. I believe this is due to the fact that isometric projection is taught in introductory drafting courses in high school. Computer programmers probably took such courses and never learned of the existence of dimetric and trimetric projection. Note that dimetric and trimetric projection aren't taught in these courses, as they're much harder to construct using only a compass and straightedge. In my personal experience, we even played SimCity 2000 [edit] in the classroom once our assignments were completed. Therefore, the two are always linked, in my mind. SharkD (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is interesting indeed. I just looked at some references at the Knight Lore page, and magazines in 1985 who reviewed the game titled it "3D", but not yet "isometric". No time to look for more right now. --Allefant (talk) 15:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Speculation regarding the mistaken use of "isometric" in computer and video games

message: As a kind of legacy of the use of isometric projection in video games, I think it may also be worth mentioning games that use true 3D graphics but give a view that looks like an isometric one; although with perspective and possible rotation available. Typical of games, especially early 3D games, that are tile based and wanted to use 3D but stick with a familiar view. Games like Dark Savior, Civilization IV, Vandal Hearts, off the top of my head although I'm sure there must be more.Carlwev (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether a game uses hardware-accelerated 3D graphics or 2D tiles makes no difference with regard to whether the game can be described as "isometric". What matters is whether the game uses a perspective camera or a parallel one. After all, many 2D sprites are themselves rendered in 3D software packages, such as 3D Studio Max. The article also already mentions some games that use perspective projection, but try to emulate the old isometric view by adjusting the camera's placement so that it lies farther away. This makes sense, since the definition of a parallel camera is that it lies infinitely far away and has infinite zoom. Maybe this section could be fleshed out more. SharkD (talk) 21:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Isometric looking 3D

message: This image caught my attention
250px|right
Although isometric projection appears to be used more recently, how much was it used in the past, and what for? and what was the first known use? This image from the 15th century looks Isometric.
Carlwev (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume it would actually be dimetric (or possbly trimetric).  There's a website out there somewhere that estimated the camera rotation angles of traditional Chinese ink drawings and compared them with the camera rotation angles of isometric projection, but I didn't bookmark it, sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 22:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just measure it with a standard ruler: the picture to the right is 2:1 dimetric. Quote from : "There's another and more important reason to apply the 2:1 ratio besides the one dealing with the optical appearance: it makes the design of structures parallel to the ground plane a lot easier and oftentimes saves much time in calculating the proper lengths without really affecting the optical impression too much." -- Seems to me that this is the case in such drawings as well. Gulliveig (talk) 04:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, I've noticed this as well. It's definitely worth a mention. I think a few years ago I did a search for sources on the subject (i.e. articles which mentioned Eastern drawings and "isometric"), but couldn't find anything. In the West (such as in medieval religious illustrations) I think oblique projection was more common. Someone with a degree in art history might know more. SharkD (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: I've been re-reading the article, and think that Fallout and SimCity 4 may in fact use a 2:1 pixel ratio despite being trimetric. Closer examination of the game sprites (in the case of Fallout; IIRC SimCity 4 doesn't use sprites) might be warranted. SharkD (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fallout and SimCity 4 

message: The docs for the video game FATE describe the perspective it uses as "Asymmetric view". The view is one where a perspective camera is placed somewhat distant, so that it "feels" sort of like the traditional "isometric" view. I think this is a neat term, as it highlights the differences between it and isometric perspective, while still remaining a single word (so that it's easy to remember). SharkD (talk) 07:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Asymmetric view 

message: Not sure whether this is worth mentioning in the article, but the Baldur's Gate series and The Temple of Elemental Evil use a rotation angle of 45 degrees from the horizontal instead of 35.264 degrees or 30 degrees. SharkD (talk) 00:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baldur's Gate 

message: The "History" and "Limitations..." sections could just as well go into Parallel projection or Axonometric projection, as the material that is covered applies nearly equally to them as well. SharkD  Talk  08:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sections with broad scope 

message: The way the article is set up now, the images are all displayed at a rather small size (instead of standard 220px thumbnail view). AnonMoos (talk) 13:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Image display

message: The caption on the first figure in the "History and limitations" section should state the the machine is an optical-grinding engine, not an optimal-grinding engine. Yes, the file name ("Optimal-grinding engine model.jpg") says it's an optimal-grinding engine, but the image description  clearly states: "Optical-grinding engine model. This is perhaps the first machine drawing rendered in 30 degrees isometric." Also of note is that the original source uses "optical", not "optimal" (noted in the edit history for the image).
Oddly, this was fixed at one point but someone changed it back, evidently without stopping to consider what exactly an optimal-grinding engine would do (although I suppose some might consider "grind optimally" to be a plausible answer). 69.77.169.106 (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  It's an optical-grinding engine, not an optimal-grinding engine 

message: I think there is ...something wrong... with these images. Firstly, the axes are not labeled, so one cannot tell which is the x-axis, which is the y-axis, etc. Usually the x-axis is red, the y-axis is green and the z-axis is blue. Secondly, shouldn't you rotate first around the vertical axis by 45° and then the horizontal axis by arctan ? These images seem to do things in the wrong order. SharkD  Talk  13:15, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't even remember cropping those.  They're certainly less clear than the images with a blue arrow at a cube vertex... AnonMoos (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example images 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 11:46, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: The redirect Isometric perspective has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.   Jay 💬 13:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Isometric perspective]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]