Determining a station point for a perspective drawing For simple perspective drawings, you don't really need to get into having a station point (or vantage point, not vanishing point) at all. As I'm looking at more complex methods, a station point becomes necessary to map your plan to to perspective layout.

Are there guidelines for determining where to place the station point? Is it arbitrary? I found a tutorial that explains that it relates to how far the viewer is from the object, and that moving it vertically adjusts that apparent distance. Yet, it says to always place directly below a certain point, which I'm not sure is necessary. 

I'm wondering how its vertical distance from the horizon line and/or picture plane, or its horizontal distance from the vanishing points, might affect the level of distortion of the object in perspective.
One or two vanishing points are placed on the horizon. If you're drawing with 3 vanishing points, the third will be above or below the horizon.



Just like the position of the horizon, the vanishing point(s) depend(s) on the perspective, and at what angle you are viewing the object you are drawing. In case of the one-point perspective, the upper and lower edge are parallel and horizontal, so any extra vanishing points would be at an infinite distance away.
In case of two-point perspective, vertical lines are parallel, so this is actually a simplified case of the three-point perspective.