Engineering Drawing Books: What a Textbook Can't Teach You

• Pick a textbook from the list below by edition, by the practice it gives you and by whether you need AutoCAD, and then stay with it.
• Orthographic and isometric views carry a large share of the SPPU first-year marks. Learn the method for them before you grind through a book's exercises.
• Bhatt's publisher lists solutions for only 2 of the book's 26 chapters, so you need checks you can run on your own drawings.
• The RG Lectures Engineering Graphics course is the best starting point. It teaches the method first, then gives you numericals and practice sheets, and you can use any textbook alongside it.

Start with the RG Lectures Engineering Graphics (All Universities) course, our top pick. The books are secondary options, compared by edition, practice volume and CAD (computer-aided drafting) content.

Figures are from each publisher's own page, as of November 2026, and the course row is from our own course page. Check each book's contents list against your syllabus before you buy.

Our calculation: 523 ÷ 26 ≈ 20 worked examples per chapter for Bhatt. That is an average across every chapter, including theory-only ones, so it is not a per-topic count.

Projections are hard because a book shows the finished drawing, while the skill is the sequence of decisions that produced it. Spatial visualisation, orthographic projection and isometric views are among the hardest areas listed in a 2024 study of engineering students' drawing difficulties. The study does not report its sample size, so read it as an indication of difficulty, not a measure.

Our view is that a solved example hides three things. It does not show which way you were looking, which line you drew first, or how you caught a mistake.

The marks make this matter. Our breakdown of the SPPU first-year Engineering Graphics end-semester paper (70 marks, 2024 pattern) puts orthographic projection at 16 marks, isometric at 16, lines at 12, planes at 12 and curves and development at 14. So orthographic and isometric together are 32 of 70, or 45.7%, as set out on our marks page.

Placement is the first place to lose marks. Under first angle projection, which our first angle vs third angle page gives as the SPPU rule, the object sits between you and the plane. Each view lands on the side opposite the direction you looked from. So ask one question before every view: which way did I look from? Then place the view opposite.

The publisher provides solutions for Chapter 17 (Isometric Projection) and Chapter 20 (Conversion of Views) only, out of 26 chapters. So for most exercises you have no answer key, and you need checks you can run yourself.

Because the publisher supplies solutions for only two chapters, most students will need to check their own work. Free PDFs of a current textbook are usually unlicensed and may not match your syllabus, so we do not link them.

Use these pass or fail checks on every drawing instead.

How do you check view alignment in first angle projection?

Pass: the top view sits directly below the front view, the right-side view sits to its left, and projector lines run straight across. Fail: a feature does not line up across views.

How do you check that dimensions match across views?

Pass: width matches between the front and top views, and height matches between the front and side views. Fail: any measurement differs between two views.

How do you check hidden features?

Pass: every edge you cannot see from that direction is dashed, and a continuous line wins where the two coincide. Fail: a hidden edge is drawn continuous or is missing.

How do you check the projection symbol?

Pass: the first angle symbol has its circles on the right. Fail: the circles are on the left, which means third angle.

How do you check isometric size?

Pass: lengths along the axes are full size, unless the question asks for the isometric scale of 0.8165. Fail: scale is mixed within one drawing.

How do you check slanted lines and circles in an isometric view?

Pass: slanted lines are plotted from their end points inside a box, and circles are drawn by the four-centre method touching the midpoint of each rhombus side. Fail: slanted lines are measured directly, or the curve misses a rhombus midpoint.

The full versions are on our orthographic projection and isometric projection pages, where 0.8165 is explained as the square root of 2/3.

Learn the method for one topic, redraw a solved example from memory, attempt one unsolved exercise, then run the checks above. This is our recommendation, and it works with any of the books above.

1. Learn the method. Watch or read one topic being built step by step. Pass: you can say what you look at first and which view you draw first.
2. Redraw one solved example from memory. Close the book. Pass: your drawing matches the book's with every view aligned. Fail: you needed to peek at the answer.
3. Attempt one unsolved exercise. Pass: you finish without opening the solved example.
4. Run the checks. Spend about ten minutes on them after each exercise. Pass: every check above holds.

Then decide what to do next:

Our Engineering Graphics course teaches in structured lessons in Hindi, starting from foundational concepts, and has numericals and practice sheets to use before your textbook's exercises. It suits students from any engineering university.

The course by Rahul Jewaani (RG Sir, our founder) has comprehensive theory lectures, extensive numerical problems, AutoCAD practical training, practice sheets and study materials. As of November 2026 it costs ₹1,399, against a listed MRP of ₹1,799, and it is valid until 30 June 2027. The price is also set out on our course cost page.

Our suggestion is to treat the course's practice sheets as your first unsolved problems, then move to your book's exercises with the checks above. If you want to start, open the Engineering Graphics (All Universities) course.