How to Make an Orthographic Elevation in Blender

This guide provides a direct, step-by-step walkthrough for producing clean, scale-accurate architectural elevations in Blender. By switching from a standard perspective camera to an orthographic projection, aligning the camera precisely to your building's primary axes, and configuring the orthographic scale and clipping limits, you can quickly generate 2D architectural drawings directly from a 3D model.

1. Add and Position the Camera

  1. Press Shift + A in the 3D Viewport and select Camera.
  2. Press Numpad 1 (Front), Numpad 3 (Right), or Numpad 7 (Top) to align your viewport perfectly with the facade you wish to capture.
  3. With the camera selected, press Ctrl + Alt + Numpad 0 to snap the active camera directly to your current viewport orientation.

Alternatively, select the camera, open the Transform panel (N), and set the rotation values to clean increments (for example, X: 90°, Y: 0°, Z: 0° for a front elevation).

2. Switch to Orthographic Mode

  1. Select your camera object in the Outliner or 3D Viewport.
  2. Go to the Data tab (the green camera icon) in the Properties panel.
  3. Under the Lens section, change the Type dropdown from Perspective to Orthographic.

3. Adjust the Orthographic Scale

Because an orthographic camera eliminates depth distortion, moving the camera closer or farther away along its local Z-axis will not change the framing.

  1. In the Camera Data properties, locate the Orthographic Scale slider.
  2. Increase the value to zoom out and fit the entire building within the frame, or decrease it to zoom in on specific architectural details.

4. Set Clipping Distances

  1. In the same Lens panel, adjust the Clip Start and Clip End values.
  2. Set Clip Start just in front of the building facade to cut away unwanted foreground objects (such as trees, fences, or site boundaries).
  3. Set Clip End just behind the building's rear footprint to prevent background elements from showing.

5. Configure Lighting and Linework for Presentation

  • Flat Architectural Linework: Enable Freestyle in the Render Properties or add a Grease Pencil Line Art modifier to generate clean 2D vector-style outlines over your geometry.
  • Sun Angle: Add a Sun Light (Shift + A > Light > Sun) angled at 45 degrees to the facade to cast realistic architectural drop shadows, establishing depth on the 2D plane.
  • Output Resolution: Go to the Output Properties tab to set your pixel dimensions and aspect ratio to match standard architectural drawing sheets (such as A3 or Arch D).