Printable Isometric Paper

What is isometric paper?

Isometric paper is covered with three sets of parallel lines: one vertical, one rising 30° to the right and one rising 30° to the left. Together they form a grid of small equilateral triangles. Each set of lines stands for one direction in space (height, width and depth), so a box drawn along the lines looks three-dimensional straight away.

"Isometric" means "equal measure". All three directions use the same scale, so one triangle side is one unit whether it runs up, to the right or to the left. That is the difference from a perspective drawing, where things shrink with distance: on isometric paper you can count units along any axis and the drawing stays measurable.

Specifications

Both PDFs are drawn at true size, and the grid runs to the edge of the sheet. A home printer leaves a few millimeters blank around the edge, which does not change the size of the triangles.

What isometric paper is used for

Anything that needs a quick, believable 3D view with real proportions:

• Engineering and product sketches: a part or an assembly drawn in one view, with its dimensions readable along the three axes.
• Piping, ducting and wiring layouts, where runs change direction in three dimensions and a flat plan would hide the vertical sections.
• Architecture and interior design: a room, a piece of furniture or a kitchen layout sketched as a block model before it is drawn properly.
• Game art and maps in the isometric style, where every tile is a diamond made of two triangles.
• Block lettering, optical illusions and impossible shapes such as the Penrose triangle, which rely on the three fixed directions.
• Patterns built from triangles, diamonds and hexagons: quilt blocks, tiling and mosaic layouts, and tessellations.

How to draw a cube on isometric paper

A cube is the basic exercise, because every other isometric drawing is cubes and boxes added together or cut away.

• Pick a grid point near the middle of the page. This will be the front corner of the cube that is nearest to you.
• From that point, draw a vertical line upward, four triangle sides long. This is the front edge.
• From the same point, draw one line four sides long along the grid up and to the right, and one four sides long up and to the left. These are the two bottom edges.
• Draw a vertical line, four sides long, up from the end of each bottom edge.
• Join the tops of the three vertical lines along the grid, then complete the top face with two more lines that meet at the back corner.

Isometric, graph or dot grid paper?

The three are easy to confuse on a shelf, but each one supports a different kind of drawing.

How to print it

Open the PDF and print at 100% scale ("Actual size"). "Fit to page" shrinks the sheet by a few percent, and the triangles would no longer be exactly 1/4 inch or 5mm. That matters as soon as you draw to scale.

The portrait sheet has vertical lines, which is the usual direction for isometric drawing. If you need a triangle grid with horizontal lines instead, for example for a tiling pattern, simply turn the printed sheet sideways.

Use a sharp pencil or a 0.3 to 0.5mm pen. Sketch lightly first, then go over the visible edges more firmly: the pale blue grid fades behind dark lines, and it almost disappears on a photocopy.