Next time you are driving along a very straight open country road on a grassy plain – you will notice the road, the fences and power-poles ahead all diminishing towards a single spot far ahead of you. You will get a very similar view standing at the door of a very long room, a long bridge or on railway tracks. This is One Point Perspective (or single-point perspective). Perspective drawings are one of the best types of drawings to use to provide a pictorial representation of an object as they produce an image that is very similar to what the human eye sees.
One Point Perspective
One point perspective is the simplest and easiest type of perspective drawing to produce. In one point perspective, the horizontals and verticals which run across the field of view remain parallel, as their vanishing points are at ‘infinity’, with horizontals which are perpendicular to the viewer vanish towards a point near the center of the image. These drawings are commonly used in interior design to represent a room or in landscapes.
Two Point Perspective
In two point perspective, the viewer is positioned such that objects (such as boxes or buildings) are viewed from one corner, so that two sets of horizontals diminish towards vanishing points at the outer edges of the picture plane, while only verticals remain perpendicular. It is slightly more complex, as both the front and back edges, and side edges, of an object must be diminished towards vanishing points. Two-point perspective is often used when drawing buildings in the landscape.
Three Point Perspective
In three point perspective the viewer is looking up or down so that the verticals also converge on a vanishing point at the top or bottom of the image. Three point perspective happens when you stand at the edge of a building and look up such as in this photograph of Big Ben. The corner nearest us seems the tallest and the tower seems to get narrower the higher it goes and at the same time, the further edges of the building get smaller as well.
