Machine generated contents note: Introduction: challenges of analysis and interpretation; 1. The ideas of architecture; 2. Vision and spatial representation; 3. The genesis of scale drawing and linear perspective; 4. Architectural vision; Excursus: envisioning cosmic mechanism in Plato and Vitruvius; Appendix A: analysis of the dimensions of the blueprint for entasis at Didyma; Appendix B: analysis of the hypothetical working drawing for platform curvature at Segesta; Appendix C: analysis of the hypothetical working drawing for platform curvature in the Parthenon.