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Confusion about ellipses

6:14 PM, Sunday May 10th 2020

So in this section (https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/2/videobranches) you mention how "how fat or skinny the ellipse is is a product of how the circle it represents is turned in space. If it's narrower, it's turned away. If it's wider, it's turned towards the viewer." But I could have sworn I read where if an ellipse is narrower it's turned toward the viewer and if its wider its turned away.

When I position a glass to see this effect the narrower ellipse is closer to me and the wider ellipse is away from me. So which is right?

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7:02 PM, Sunday May 10th 2020

So you're confusing two separate properties of the circle in 3D space.

  • As the circle our ellipse represents turns away from the viewer (like turning a coin to look at its edge), the ellipse gets narrower as shown here. As it turns towards us (to look at the face of the coin), the ellipse gets wider.

  • If you have two circles that are oriented the same way but in different positions in the world (like the two ends of a cylinder), the one that is closer to the viewer will be narrower and the one that is physically farther away in 3D space will be wider.

The first point talks about the orientation of the circle itself relative to the viewer, whereas the second point talks about the distance of the viewer from the circle. You can see this second point explained in these notes from the 250 cylinder challenge which you haven't reached yet.

8:27 PM, Sunday May 10th 2020

I guess m confusion comes from the fact that when talking about branches you mention ellipses when I'm thinking tubes/cylinders. But I see what your saying.

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