|
|
Article: Scale Drawings and Models
- Article from:
- Mathematics
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Scale Drawings and Models
Scale drawings are based on the geometric principle of similarity. Two figures are similar if they have the same shape even though they may have different sizes. Any figure is similar to itself, so, in this specific case, the similar figures do actually have the same size as well as the same shape.
Scale Drawing and Models in Geometry
In traditional Euclidean geometry, two
polygons
are similar if their corresponding angles are equal and their corresponding sides are in proportion. For example, the two right triangles shown below are similar, because the length of each side in the large triangle is twice the length of the corresponding side in the small ...