How to use the perspective grid tool in Illustrator CS5

Two new tools have been added to the Adobe Illustrator Cs5 :  The Perspective Grid tool (Shift-P) and the Perspective Selection tool (Shift-V). With some super easy controls to handle the grid, these tools can be real handy for some designers specially architects, interior designers, and other graphic designers working with object which need to look 3 dimensional. The Perspective Grid tool adds a grid to the illustrator canvas that can be visually and easily modified. When a grid plane is active, the normal drawing tools  start to work in perspective. When moving or scaling objects in perspective, be sure to use the Perspective Selection tool to keep the object in perspective.

First Open a new document. Click on the perspective icon in the tool bar on the left. Its located above the gradient tool.

You can also go to View > Perspective Grid and choose the type of grid you would like to work with. Eg: One point or two point or three point perspective.

Once you click the perspective tool, the grid will immediately appear on the canvas. You can alter the perspective by simply click-dragging the corner nodes located on each corner of the grid , as shown below.  You can also change the vanishing point to a longer or shorter view. The handles at the bottom helps to increase or decrease the number of boxes in the grid.

Reduce the height of the object if you wish , as shown.

The cube on the top left corner shows which plane of the perspective is selected. The blue highlight shows that the blue side of the plane is selected.

Simply draw a simple shape and fill it with any color you wish. Make sure the perspective selector on the top left corner is not selected. If any one of the side is highlighted then simply click outside the cube to deactivate the selection. The Grey border out side the cube will turn to light green color.

Now to choose which side you want the shape to be placed on, just go to the tool bar and select the Perspective selection tool , as shown below, and click on the relevant side of the cube. The color on the cube will show you which side of the grid is selected.

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Here we have selected the Blue side of the grid

Simply click and drag the shape and you will see and temporary blue bounding box , just like shown below. The box will automatically align itself as per the plane. Place the object in the position you desire.

Modify the shape of the object after you have placed it on the grid.

Deselect the perspective selector once again to place any other shape on a different plane of the grid.

Draw out another shape .Place it on the other side of the grid just like the previous step

You can draw out more shapes , if you wish and even place it one on top of each other on any plane containing previous shapes

Select the side of the grid with the Perspective selector tool and place the shape

Repeat the process by duplicating the object any number of times you want. Thats it. In a matter of 2 minutes you have drawn an object in 3 dimensional space.

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