Plans are a set of drawings or two-dimensional diagrams used to describe a place or object, or to communicate building or fabrication instructions. Usually plans are drawn or printed on paper, but they can take the form of a digital file.
Plans are used in a range of fields: architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, industrial engineering to systems engineering.
The term "plan" may casually be used to refer to a single view, sheet, or drawing in a set of plans. More specifically a plan view is an orthographic projection looking down on the object, such as in a floor plan.
Plans are often for technical purposes such as architecture, engineering, or planning. Their purpose in these disciplines is to accurately and unambiguously capture all the geometric features of a site, building, product or component. Plans can also be for presentation or orientation purposes, and are often less detailed versions of the former. The end goal of plans is either to portray an existing place or object, or to convey enough information to allow a builder or manufacturer to realize a design.
The process of producing plans, and the skill of producing them, is often referred to as technical drawing. A working drawing is a type of technical drawing, which is part of the documentation needed to build an engineering product or architecture. Typically in architecture these could include civil drawings, architectural drawings, structural drawings, mechanical drawings, electrical drawings, and plumbing drawings. In engineering, these drawings show all necessary data to manufacture a given object, such as dimensions and angles.
Plans are often prepared in a "set". The set includes all the information required for the purpose of the set, and may exclude views or projections which are unnecessary. A set of plans can be on standard office-sized paper or on large sheets. It can be stapled, folded or rolled as required. A set of plans can also take the form of a digital file in a proprietary format such as DWG or an exchange file format such as DXF or PDF.