Blue Print - Replacements For Blueprints

Replacements For Blueprints

Traditional blueprints have largely been replaced by more modern, less expensive printing methods and digital displays. In the early 1940s, cyanotype blueprint began to be supplanted by diazo prints or whiteprints, which have blue lines on a white background; thus these drawings are also called blue-lines or bluelines. Other comparable dye-based prints are known as blacklines.

Diazo prints remain in use in some applications but in many cases have been replaced by xerographic print processes similar to standard copy machine technology using toner on bond paper. More recently, designs created using computer-aided design techniques may be transferred as a digital file directly to a computer printer or plotter; in some applications paper is avoided altogether and work and analysis is done directly from digital displays. Another common modern method of copying is the use of large-format scanners. These digitize an image which can then be printed with a large-format plotter.

As print and display technology has advanced, the traditional term "blueprint" has continued to be used informally to refer to each type of image.