Islamic patterns are something I've been wanting to explore since I bought a copy of Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach by Keith Critchlow in the late 1970s. By exploring I don't mean just looking at them. I mean drawing them. The Critchlow book has instructions on how to draw them. Islamic patterns are not measured, they are constructed using only three elements: point, line, and arc. Simplicity but with those three elements you can construct whole worlds.

My fascination is two-fold. The first is that I started drafting at age 13. We called it mechanical drawing then. I took it in all 4 years of high school. One of the main reasons I went to the school of Architecture at the University of Washington (Seattle) was because I could still do drafting. Well, that didn't work out but I did discover Islamic architecture which blew my mind. That was the second reason for studying Islamic patterns.

I ended up at Boeing as a drafter. From 1965 to 1981 (not continuous -- I got laid of once and quit once in that time period) I was on the board with triangles, pencils, pens, drafting machine, compass, and curves. I really enjoyed it. In 1981 I moved into Computer Aided Design (CAD). Same thing but on a computer.

In the mid 1990s I bought a t-square and drawing board and tried drawing them the old-fashioned way. That didn't work out. I knew I needed to do it on a computer. In 2001 I bought a copy of TurboCad 8 and took another run at it. I made some progress but then I ran into the problem of not being able to print them out so the Islamic patterns were put aside again. Part of the reason for not going forward was that the Critchlow book was difficult to follow at times.

I just picked up a copy of Islamic Geometric Patterns by Eric Broug and it is much more to my liking. That prompted me to look for a free CAD program since I couldn't find my copy of TurboCAD (I know it's around here somwhere!). I found DoubleCAD XT which is put out by the same people that do TurboCAD. DoubleCAD XT is 2D only and uses the 2D part of TurboCad which also does solid modeling. DoubleCAD XT is a much better tool. Now to take another run at Islamic patterns. And I have a printer this time.

I also have a Flicker set to collect my journey into these patterns: Islamic patterns