Technical Illustration

Brian Micklethwait discusses a new concept in digital cameras, which could be very useful indeed for anyone trying to write instructions for physical devices:

Think of all those instructions manuals where, in order to explain things properly, they cannot use photos, because photos are not clear enough, and must instead resort to laboriously created line drawings. Well, this gadget creates line drawings like that automatically.

Multi-flash imaging promises to facilitate and pioneer complicated rendering of mechanical objects, plants, or internal anatomical parts. Because of its ability to detect depth discontinuities, it may render shapes that would otherwise be difficult to perceive. For instance, a car engine could easily be captured in a non-photorealistic image and then superimposed over an actual photograph of the engine resulting in a superior manual illustration (see example below). Alternatively, a skeleton with complex network of white bones could be efficiently reproduced for instructional medical visualization. Additionally, an endoscopic camera enhanced with the multi-flash technology promises to enhance internal anatomical visualization for researchers and medical doctors.

I wonder if the kind of cheap digital cameras you can now buy for $200 will soon have this kind of facility.

Most of my technical writing has been about software, so this device wouldn't be as immediately useful to me as to someone in other industries — but it's a really cool idea.