With your paper level, each red tick mark will indicate the direction from the center of the paper out towards your environment in 10° increments.Ī third way is to use a compass app on your smartphone. If you’re lazy and don’t care too much about accuracy like me, you can follow the astronomers’ tricks described here to measure angles from the known points in your scene.Īnother method uses the red marks that I placed the edge of the perspective graph paper. The first is the horizontal angle between straight forwards and your object: the azimuth. The second is the vertical angle between your object and the horizon: the altitude. Your job now, is to figure out where each item in your environment belongs on the grid paper. Imagine your head is in the center of this ball. The sets of lines emanating from each of these directions are spaced 10° apart. One set of lines go from straight forward to straight back, one goes from left to right and the third set go up and down. Now you can associate six main real-life directions with these locations on your grid: Up, Back, Left, Forwards, Right, and Down Pick a wall or a building to be forward and face it squarely. Step 2 – Locate your surroundings onto the gridĪlign yourself with your surroundings. Then, when you’re drawing, make sure the paper is on a light surface so that the black lines on the back of the paper show through. The second is to print the grid onto the back of the paper you’re drawing on. Use tracing paper and tape or pin it down on top of the grid. I have two ways of superimposing (subimposing?) this grid onto paper. Legal size paper (8.5″×14″) is a great size for this purpose. Get your drawing materials: pencil, eraser, easel, and paper.ĭownload and print a version of this equirectangular perspective grid. Pick a location with plenty of rectangular shapes and lines. The method below helps us draw these curves properly. Equirectangular’s curvy versions of straight lines It’s changing the orientation of things to appear as they do when you turn your head to scan the room. Really that’s all an equirectangular projection is doing. A straight line, in real life appears different angles as you turn your head. Moving further, the corner will be at a downward angle. Then, scanning along the top of the wall to a point right in front of you, that edge will be level. From where you are sitting now, notice that an edge coming from one corner of a ceiling will be angled upwards. Also notice how the top and bottom get all stretched out. Notice how the the left side wraps around and continues on the right. Have a look at the equirectangular group on Flickr for more examples. If not, here’s one now!Īn equirectangular projection maps your surroundings to a rectangle with 360 equally spaced degrees from the left to right and 180 equally spaced degrees up and down. It is a good idea to become familiar with what an equirectangular projection is before you head out to draw one. Step 0 – Get familiar with equirectangular projections Matthew Lopas’ facebook page features many such paintings, and Tom Lechner’s flickr group has more examples.įun right? It seems there are as many ways to accomplish hand drawn panoramas as there are artists doing this.
Artists like Dick Termes, Matthew Lopas, Jackie Lima, Arno Hartman, and Tom Lechner have been drawing or painting complete or ultra-wide-angle panoramas for some time.
Hand drawn panoramas are an uncommon art form but they aren’t new. It captures every direction. I want to show you how you can hand draw (or sketch, paint, etc.) these panoramas.Īnd if you can draw one that adheres to the equirectangular projection, you can upload it to sites like Flickr and Facebook which provide interactive panorama viewers like these ones: A spherical panorama is one that captures, not just 360° around, but all the way up and down too.