myLowe’s Exploded from Brian Abe Lowes TV on Vimeo.

[via Quipsologies]

These are internals of actual equipment. We buy items, usually via eBay or Craigslist, and we take them apart. Sometimes this requires special tools. Then we photograph the pieces and meticulously render them in Adobe Illustrator. Troy Paiva and Garry Booth are two of the skilled artists who have ‘exploded’ designs for us.

This Mac design is great, but, as I’ve said before, I’d really like an Apple IIe shirt.

[via Kottke.org]

(photos from Motorcycle-USA.com)

[via Subtraction]

The binary decoders look especially cool.

If your local Goodwill is fresh out, you can order your own copy from Amazon.

[via Neatorama]

And if you like that, perhaps you’d be interested in these as well.

I wouldn’t mind having an Apple IIe design, if any of you shirt tycoons are listening.

]]> http://www.explainist.com/2009/04/16/exploded-nerdware/feed/ 0 http://www.explainist.com/2009/01/16/roll-your-own-technical-illustrations/ http://www.explainist.com/2009/01/16/roll-your-own-technical-illustrations/#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:55:31 +0000 Tom http://www.explainist.com/?p=59 Continue reading →]]> If you’re so inclined (and own Adobe Illustrator), VECTORTUTS will show you how to make professional-grade exploded isometric technical illustrations* to explain whatever machine you like.

*These are the types of diagrams used in patents and other technical illustrations. Isometric, in this case, means a representation of a three-dimensional object in which lines that are parallel in the three-dimensional world are represented as parallel lines in a two-dimensional drawing. In other words, the style ignores the law of perspective that says parallel lines will appear to converge at the horizon line (as seen in Q-Bert and the Sims). Exploded means the individual pieces of an object are separated, so you can see how they all fit together (as seen in product assembly manuals).

[via Drawn]

United sort of ran out of steam when they applied exploded view to their Employee Scholars program — it’s just an un-technical drawing of a guy’s head with various objects in it that expand and grow labels/explanation when you roll over them. Kind of a let-down after all that awesome. Also, I wish they’d included some sort of permalink system inside the animation, because then I could be pointing you to the coolest parts of it.

[linky]

The artistry is clearly awesome, but the delicious topping for me is that they bothered to make so much of this stuff accurate (or at least accuratish). For example, the escalator cutaway is highly detailed and right on the money, and it’s only onscreen for four seconds. There’s a good bit of playful exaggeration too — the parts of the ear are drawn correctly, but sound waves trigger a bouncier cartoon chain reaction than you would actually see.I’ve had a hand in building animated cutaway diagrams before — the type of thing that makes up only a few frames in this video — and fitting the details together is no small chore. Kudos to those responsible, the French production company H5, according to Wikipedia and others. (My kudos are way late, apparently. The video already won best video at the MTV Europe Music Awards, way back in 2002).

I found a bit of interesting chatter in the YouTube comments on the video. Several posters took it for granted that this was a depressing view of mundane modern life. I really don’t see it that way. Normally, I do get discouraged by musical montages of workers filing into offices or even families chaotically taking off in the morning (a staple of supposedly cheery breakfast treat ads). The notion that life is hectically repetitive for no discernible reason makes me queasy. But this video was actually uplifting to me.

For one thing, I love to be reminded that there is so much to learn about even incredibly ordinary stuff. After all, there aren’t really many boring things, just boring people. It’s good to turn on the awestruck wonder whenever you can. Also, I’m comforted by the idea that even though there’s a lot of complexity under the surface of everything, I could actually figure out what was going on if I took the time to sort through the detailed, readily available information. It’s the same comfort I get walking through the library or bookstore. I may not want to learn all about building construction at a particular moment, but it’s good to know I could pick up several books on the subject (and understand them) if I were so inclined. Nice to have signs that the roads are open.

PS: I intended this post to be pure praise, since 100% of our posts to date have had a bit of finger wagging in them, but I can’t ignore the bad splainin’ on both Röyksopp and H5′s Web sites.

Röyksopp greeted me only with this and an album promotion pop-up:

Which details did you need? Shoe size? Favorite Pop Tart flavor?

H5 gave me little more:

Very strange to have such dead-end home pages in this day and age.