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blueprint
Sign in to saveAlso known as cyanotype, ferro-prussiate print, pellet print (positive), cynaofer (positive), positieve ferotype
thumb|Blueprint for a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort|Butler-class destroyer escort, 1944 A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842. The traditional white-on-blue appearance of blueprints is a result of the cyanotype process, which allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number of copies of an original reference. It was widely used for over a century for the reproduction of specification drawings used in construction and industry. Blueprints were
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- The blueprint process
- Whiteprints
- Digital
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|Blueprint for a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort|Butler-class destroyer escort, 1944 A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842. The traditional white-on-blue appearance of blueprints is a result of the cyanotype process, which allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited number of copies of an original reference. It was widely used for over a century for the reproduction of specification drawings used in construction and industry. Blueprints were characterized by white lines on a blue background, a negative of the original. Color or shades of grey could not be reproduced.
The process is obsolete, initially superseded by the diazo-based whiteprint process, and later by large-format xerographic photocopiers. It has since almost entirely been superseded by digital computer-aided construction drawings.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “blueprint” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.