Quickest way to create line shading for patent drawings
Hi, I'm trying to figure out a technique to do line shading, as in patent illustrations, the quickest way possible.
If you're not familiar with patent line shading, the preferred look is to have parallel or concentric discontinuous lines,
and are used both to differentiate one surface from another, and to give an indication of the contours of the shape.
The light source for the line shadows is supposed to be top left, so light at a 45 degree angle.
I've attached a work in progress to give you a better idea of what I mean. Here is my technique. If you want to give me some
advice or feedback, please actually open up Illustrator and test out your idea so that you can see how long it takes
rather than just opining. If you have experience actually working on patent illustrations, I'd definitely like to hear what technique
you've used for the shading. What I did here was select two lines from the drawing, copied and pasted them to a new layer
for the shading. Then, using the blend tool, adding specified steps and playing with the number to create a density of lines
that wasn't too dark. Then I expanded that object using the object menu (unchecking lines and fills). Then I selected each
line and used different dash gap settings for each line to make them non-uniform looking, so they wouldn't be confused as
some kind of surface ornamentation pattern. Lastly, I used the eraser tool to erase some of them away in order to make the
top left of that area appear to have a spot of light on it (at least for the main cylinder of the drawing).
The problem is that it's somewhat time-consuming, and I'd like to find a faster way.
So, please let me know what you think of this technique, can you improve upon it to make the process faster, more automated?
Or, if you have an idea for a completely different technique, please tell me what it is.
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