Exploded view
- exploded diagram
- teardown layout
- parts separation
The parts of the product pulled apart along one line, in the order they assemble.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
An exploded view is a diagram made with a camera. It answers what is inside and how it goes together, in one frame, without a single word of text.
It also sells care. A product shown in fifteen separate parts, each one lit and placed, tells the viewer that somebody designed all fifteen.
How it works
Pick one axis and keep every part on it. Vertical for a stack, horizontal for a tool, straight at the camera for a lens. One line is what makes it read as an assembly.
Space the parts evenly and align them on a common centre line. A thin part and a thick part get the same gap, because the gaps are a rhythm rather than a measurement.
Light every part the same. One soft source from the upper left across the whole set, with a fill card opposite. A part lit brighter than its neighbours jumps forward and breaks the line.
Give the whole set one shadow, under the lowest part, on a plain pale ground. Every part needs its full outline clear, so keep the background empty behind every gap.
When to use it
Use it for anything with parts a buyer cares about: a watch, a tool, a camera, a filter, a piece of furniture, a shoe with a named sole unit.
Leave it alone for a solid object. A ceramic mug has nothing to explode, and the shot turns into a mug beside a lid.
Told apart from its neighbours
A range shot separates whole products and orders them by size. An exploded view separates the parts of one product and orders them by assembly. Getting the order wrong is the same fault in both.
A floating product hides the fact that anything holds it up. An exploded view holds many parts in the air at once and nobody questions it, because the frame reads as a diagram rather than a photograph of a room.
Where it is used
The exploded view came from patent drawings and machine parts catalogues long before a camera made one: Leonardo da Vinci drew exploded assemblies around 1480. Furniture makers put the same layout on an instruction sheet, and IKEA has done it on paper since the 1950s. iFixit has published photographic teardowns laid out this way since 2003, and watch brands use it to show a movement part by part, which is the version with the most parts and the tightest spacing.
- patent drawings
- furniture instruction sheets
- watch movement diagrams
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own subject, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<product> in an exploded view, every part separated along one vertical axis in the order it assembles, even gaps between the parts, all parts aligned on a common centre line, camera square to that line at the middle of the stack, one soft light from the upper left falling equally on every part, plain pale ground, a single soft shadow under the lowest part only
What goes wrong
The parts scatter in every direction. Say separated along one vertical axis, aligned on a common centre line, in the order they assemble.
One part comes back brighter or sharper than the rest. Say one light falls equally on every part, and say every part is in the same focus.
Leave out
parts flying in random directions, parts out of order, uneven gaps, a part rotated off the centre line, a part in different light, a part missing
Watch for
One axis and one order. Parts scattered in three directions read as a crash, not an assembly.
Questions
Shoot it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
