Engineering drawing

Overview
Technical drawing of a certification listing for a firestop system

Engineering drawings are usually created in accordance with standardized conventions for layout, nomenclature, interpretation, appearance (such as typefaces and line styles), size, etc. One such standardized convention is called GD&T.

Each field in the Fields of engineering will have its own set of requirements for the producing drawings in terms line weight, symbols, and technical jargon. Some fields of engineering have no GD&T requirements.

The purpose of such a drawing is to accurately and unambiguously capture all the geometric features of a product or a component. The end goal of an engineering drawing is to convey all the required information that will allow a manufacturer to produce that component.

Engineering drawings used to be created by hand using tools such as pencils, ink, straightedges, T-squares, French curves, triangles, rulers, scales, and erasers. Today they are usually done electronically with computer-aided design (CAD).

The drawings are still often referred to as "blueprints" or "bluelines", although those terms are anachronistic from a literal perspective, since most copies of engineering drawings that were formerly made using a chemical-printing process that yielded graphics on blue-colored paper or, alternatively, of blue-lines on white paper, have been superseded by more modern reproduction processes that yield black or multicolour lines on white paper. The more generic term "print" is now in common usage in the U.S. to mean any paper copy of an engineering drawing.

The process of producing engineering drawings, and the skill of producing them, is often referred to as technical drawing or drafting, although technical drawings are also required for disciplines that would not ordinarily be thought of as parts of engineering.