Technical Illustrators.org Forum

Perhaps someone has experience with this. I'm kicking around illustrating my wristwatch (no tracing ). I've used the 3D extrusion tool on the watch case and added some X, Y and Z rotation.
Is there a calculation I can use to determine how much I need to shear and rotate the watch face based on my XYZ rotations on my extrusion? Keep in mind the watch face is remaining 2D for now. I thought of using the 3D extrusion tool and give it an extrude depth of 0; while it gives me the desired angle, many of my paths go all funky and would mean a lot of clean-up.
There must be some math I can use go get the right numbers. Thanks in advance...

A little late, but how I'd do this is to create a cube that matches the angles of the 3D extruded object using three 1" squares and the direct selection tool.

Then create three more 1" squares and figure out how each face was scaled, sheared and rotated.

Use that information to start putting together some Top Front and Side actions, and then use trial and error until you can turn three 1" squares into a cube that matches the one you distorted and the 3D extrusion.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks James,
I was toying with an ideas similar to this, but not using 1" cube. Definitely easier to do trial and error when working with something with the same base measurement.