Descriptive Geometry: From its Past to its Future

Descriptive geometry is the science that Gaspard Monge systematized in 1794 and that was widely developed in Europe, up until the first decades of the twentieth century. The main purpose of this science is the certain and accurate representation of three-dimensional shapes on the twodimensional support of the drawing, while its chief application is the study of geometric shapes and their characteristics, in graphic and visual form. We can therefore understand how descriptive geometry has been, on the one hand, the object of theoretical studies, and, on the other, an essential tool for designers, engineers and architects. Nevertheless, at the end of the last century, the availability of electronic machines capable of representing threedimensional shapes has produced an epochal change, because designers have adopted the new digital techniques almost exclusively. The purpose of this paper is to show how it is possible to give new life to the ancient science of representation and, at the same time, to endow CAD with the dignity of the history that precedes it.