CAD and CAM Books

I thought I knew Photoshop but I was wrong. I borrowed this book from the library but it was so good I decided to buy it.

First of all, if your life involves CAD and Photoshop, you should probably buy this book: It's very useful. Part of the reason it's useful is because there are not a lot books on this subject.

One of the greatest features about this book is its greatest flaw: the enclosed LISP program that turns AutoCad layers into Photoshop layers. What promise that has! It works great with the tiny 8.5 x11 drawings on the enclosed disc. But when you try to use that with a real drawing, say in 36" by 24" format, the drawing crashes.

I am very very pleased with this book. It is exactly what I have been looking for. I first purchased a DVD by the same author called *Photoshop for Architects* which I felt was so well done that I decided to buy the book. Having both is a real asset for they work in unison. Buying the book and the DVD, in my opinion, is a necessity. Each stands alone but they compliment each other. The DVD provides comprehensive coverage without going into every small detail. The book parallels the same information on the DVD but goes into greater detail. I am Architecturally educated but with limited computer experience and I have only recently purchased a first ADOBE product which is ADOBE CS. I imagine this book would be an excellent tool for anyone new to PS no matter what the intended use of PS will eventually be. The book starts with some general, but relevant, tech info without scientific overload. It step by step moves one through a real project from beginning to end so you learn most of the tools, how to set things up, various ways of accomplishing the same things and what to do in finishing out a project. I consider the presentation style to be superb for learning.

I am currently working my way through a real project and learning a lot which has not easily come together for me, in total, when reading other books which explain how to do this or that little thing but seem unrelated, in a comprehensive way, to a total project of substance. Working from and by referencing back to the CD that comes with the book and the separately available DVD, I feel that I have more quickly learned and also taken an interest in certain important basics. I have learned many tools very quickly, discovered alternate ways of doing things (plus reason why) which causes me to realize the value of investigating multiple PS capabilities, reasons for things needing to be done in specific ways and the limitations of doing things in cetain ways etc. I like the fact that I can use the book and DVD to step through a real project from beginning to completion.

This book and DVD is the best and most enjoyable learning tool I have found for learning PS and I have looked at many and purchased all from Adobe that relate to each part of Adobe CS. What this author offers is exactly what we have been looking for and I am hoping he will be creating similar documents for Adobe Illustrator and other Adobe products (for Architects) as our interest and abilities develop. If anything better exist I sure would like to know what it is.

It shouldn't be hard to find a better text than this one for an AutoCAD course or for self-study. Though this "Exercise Workbook" is supposedly for "Beginning AutoCAD 2007," the illustrations and portions of the instructions correspond to the 2006 edition of AutoCAD. This error is likely to be off-putting for the absolute AutoCAD neophytes to whom this workbook is addressed.

Furthermore--though the publisher does clearly state the fact--the included edition of AutoCAD 2007 - while it is the complete software (and not a "light" version) - nevertheless inconveniently "times out" in about a month... probably not enough time to work through the entire book at a sane and profitable pace.

While working with the ACTUAL software should be a plus in learning, its inclusion here may actually work against the learner.

Either the timeout on the included software were better extended to full-semester length (say 4-5 months) or an untimed, stripped down Learner's ELEMENTS of AutoCAD should have been produced to go with its matching workbook (which would not be THIS text).

The text and fonts are large enough for easy reading. Screens are reproduced clearly enough. Nevertheless, the whole production has a rather rough-and-ready, "cheesy feel" about it.

In other words, the "production values" are not high. Though this workbook is not expensive (and certainly not at Amazon!), its perhaps consequent crudeness relative to more produced or crafted (and more expensive?) texts, may defeat the virtue of being easily come by.

Easy come... not necessarily easy- (and definitely not long-) going. This workbook gives the impression that its author is merely riding the wave of successive editions of the software... merely retitling, perhaps adding new installation instructions - but not much more tracking than that - to keep consistent with changes in the software (which didn't even happen on this go-round!).

Apart from the software timeout issue, the pedagogy itself seems sound and confident with information presented in coherent small chunks. The author actually seems to let herself down with this somewhat tired 2006 redux of (one is led to expect without actually doing the examination) a 2005 redux of....

For anyone looking to learn the architecture program AutoCAD, this workbook is ideal. It instills a challenge yet manageable tenacity for every beginner. As a post-novice experience, Shrock's Workbook for Advanced AutoCAD is a meticulous step. 5 stars way, way up!

This book was sent to several engineers at the magazine. The author provides a good starting point for someone with a high school education. You will have to get a more advanced text to teach yourself the finer points but this would be the place to start. The fonts used are easy to read.

I did not try the disk so I won't comment. Having the disk is an excellent idea. Two discs with a 30-day trial for AutoCAD and a simple step-by-step manual provides ample tools for self-study.

The only reason why I did not give a 5 was because the text won't provide the more advanced techniques you will need to actually use AutoCAD on the job.

If this review helped, please vote.

Thanks

This is my personal observation and initial experience with the entire book and the software. The comments posted here have nothing to do with how the authors' decision to present his work. I do not attempt to compare one software to another. It is none of my business to ask why one software calls the title block as REFERENCE and the other calls the title block as "SHEET". I am sure your college professor will have a better answer to your question.

The book is a well organized extension of the Bentley's user help file for its "2-D design and drafting." And the authors have well industrial and academic experience.

The included CD in the back of the book (claimed on p. xxi) has material of chapter 1 thru 13 and "17?" (there was no chapter 17 in the textbook! - see p.xvii). Furthermore, the CD presents very meticulous step-by-step hands-on exercises in chapter 1 to 13. And as soon as it gets to 3-D solid modeling (the non-existence chapter 17 in the CD), all you get is some drawings with dimensions. No step-by-step on how to do it! What a waste for a 30 year experienced professor, who could not show how to construct a true 3-D PARAMETRIC solid modeling technique. Boolean is not a true parametric design.

If you are doing 3-D design right now, then turn to page 121 and enjoy a good laugh at the drawing of the complete bicycle assembly design with some 2-D circles and linear lines (notice that we 3D people did hand over the creation of 2-D views to the 3-D parametric drafting with associative dimensioning software more than 10 years ago!)

For 3-D Boolean's design, you will not get much out of this book. Other authors of Microstation V8 such as Andrew L. Anderson (Microstation V8: An introduction to Computer-Aided Design, 2002) would have done the same thing. They failed to recognized the true potential of 3-D parametric technology in Mechanical design. All the presentations are based on the 3-D primitives. Who can proudly claim that a helical spring can be created with 3-D primitives?

Other needed minor improvements such as on page 12 figure 1-15 the authors want you to access the task Navigation/drawing/linear. And for new users, you will get an impression that the task navigation menu is located on the left of the screen. However, that is not the case. The task Navigation is located on the top right corner of the main menu in the latest Microstation V8 XM High security release (XM does not mean a thing! It just sound like some radio station to me!).

And finally, for 2-D people it is a good book to buy so that you can post page 220, 221 and 223 right in front of your available and visible wall so that you can learn and remember all the o,v,T,B,X,Y,D,A,L,RQ,RA,RE,RV,RZ,GT,GK,GA,WA,P,M,I,N,M,C,K,HA,HS,HU,Q,~,? key-in short cuts! I as 3-D people do envy your 2-D drafting brain power! We 3-D parametric solid modeling people do not have to face such problem at all!
Thank you and have a great day!

I have had two versions of this book before, so I knew what I was buying. The last version SE seemed more comprehensive. The book cover was damaged when I received it, however.

This is a great book if you are a now user and need to start from the scratch. There is a plenty of excercises, on the attached CD. On the other hand, it is written for American market, in other words, all measures are in inches and feet, not my favorites.

This book was very useful to me. I started to work with Visio not without the previous experience with ConceptDraw, but this book with good examples and explanations helped me to master Visio quicker.

The book is well written and easy to read with good graphics for a beginner level user. It did not provide the information I was searching for. The program is very intuitive to use as the book shows. I wanted to learn how to develop my own templates and stencils. I have not been able to find a clear explanation anywhere as how to do this. I mainly use Visio Home because it has more residential type stencils provided with it. I've wanted to import those stencils into Visio Technical 5 and create custom ones for home planning type layouts. Someone needs to publish a good book that covers this subject clearly.

I've been working with different versions of Visio for over 5 years now, but I bought both of Grabowski's books (beginning and advanced) to learn "everything" I could about Visio. This book was an excellent tutorial, well written, and patient. Exercises were educational and the book just seemed to move along at a good pace. I was impressed.

The book covers most of the fundamental aspects of logic synthesis and verification algorithms commonly implemented in the popular CAD tools. However, the book is poorly written and full of typos. One may constantly wonder what is going on until he reads the material like the 2nd or 3rd times and guess his way through. Sadly, there is rarely a better book in the CAD field, so even though the book is not very well written the material presented is still worth reading especially for any serious readers working in the field of logic synthesis.

I had the oppurtunity to study this book in my graduate study. I think it is a well-written book, which has a substantial coverage of the field of logic synthesis and verification. I would highly recommend this book to advanced readers and those who are mathematically inclined. The expertise of the authors is reflected in the content of the book, and this can be fully appreciated by the readers having the qualifications mentioned above.

This book is good. It covers all the fundamentals needed to learn two level and multi level logic synthesis and verification.

It's a good stepping stone for those readers wanting to delve more into the IEEE publications area later on in their careers when implementing new algorithms for logic synthesis.

I sure hope Mr Lamit designs Pro/E parts better than he designs books. After 8 years of higher education (no, not dim, just got 2 degrees and a Masters), this is unquestionably the most difficult-to-follow and poorly edited textbook I've ever had the displeasure of using. This is the quintessential engineer-trying-to-write-a-book book. Hardly a page goes by that isn't absolutely overwhelmed with call-out boxes, "Important Reminders!", unnecessary inset notes, diagram indication arrows flying all over the place, and general layout chaos. Pro/E is a difficult program to learn, and this book doesn't help matters. It is thorough in its coverage, but be prepared to be frustrated.

I'm using this book about 3wks now, even though that im using a proe 2001 this book (release 2000i)still very good to use for a beginer like me. i think this book is better than any other book for proe 2001. The detail of the explanation, you can see how concern is the autor for you to learn in the right way. The cd comes with the book have a lot of information. (it is not like just a cd that they just put anything just to say that there is a cd in that book so you think it might be good to buy.) I got 3 books of proe including "proe 2001 instructor" which is a good one too, but this "Pro/ENGINEER(r) 2000i² Includes Pro/NC and Pro/SHEETMETAL
by Louis Gary Lamit ", i think is better.

I'm just hope that Mr. Gary Lamit will make one for "release 2001" "SOON".....

This book is more than a college text book. It has a lot of information that unless you know ProE, it would not be self-apparent. The author's easy to read and follow instructions allow new and middle of the road students to follow step by step samples. Personally, I use this book when teaching privately and since I teach at a local college, I would like to get it into the school's library and/or one of my classes. The only thing that may discourage people is that it is a thick book and might be too long for a 15 week semester course, but it could be used in two sessions.

Enjoy. By the way, the author and publisher are more than willing to share the teacher's models if you adopt their book as a text book. Less work for us. Cool.

Additional comments:
... I have been using this book to teach mechanical engineers how to migrate to ProE from CADRA 2D. Many have adopted to the drastic change from 2D to 3D solids and have found that the more you use the book for reference the easier it gets to see future design problems and solutions.
Good luck

Good book. It really goes into detail. The MATLAB code does not work due to missing functions "unitr" and "crossr".

Errors in the MATLAB code, Antenna Engineering Using Physical Optics

There are errors in the MATLAB code files po09b, po13c, po15d, and po17b, most resulting from calls to previous versions of 3 m-file functions:

incorrect name-----------------correct name
unitr-------------------------norm01
crossr------------------------cross01
vlenr-------------------------length01

These errors can be corrected by making the following changes:

1. on m-file po09b, listed in pages 147-148 of the text, 4 lines must be changed:

line 22 is:
ut2=ones(Na,1)*unitr(crossr(un0,[1 0 0]));
but should be:
ut2=ones(Na,1)*norm01(cross01(un0,[1 0 0]));

line 24 is:
ut1=crossr(ut2,un0);
but should be:
ut1=cross01(ut2,un0);

line 49 is:
urs=unitr([rs zeros(Na,1)]);
but should be:
urs=norm01([rs-ones(size(DSa))*r0]);

line 50 is:
ups=crossr(uns,urs);
but should be:
ups=cross01(uns,urs);

2. on m-file po13c, listed in pages 202-203 of the text, 3 lines must be changed:

line 59 is:
alr=atan(2*Fl./vlenr(rr));
but should be:
alr=atan(2*Fl./length01(rr-rr(:,3)*[0 0 1]));

line 62 is:
u2r=unitr(crossr(unr,ones(Nr,1)*[1 0 0]));
but should be:
u2r=norm01(cross01(unr,ones(Nr,1)*[1 0 0]));

line 63 is:
u1r=crossr(u2r,unr);
but should be:
u1r=cross01(u2r,unr);

3. on m-file po15d, listed on pages 222-224 of the text, 1 line must be changed:

line 26 is:
u2bf=unitr(cross01(unbf,[1 0 0]));

but should be:
u2bf=norm01(cross01(unbf,[1 0 0]));

4. on m-file po15e, listed on pages 222-224 of the text, 1 line must be changed:

line 18 is:
EscJ=-Z0*cross01(ut(nb,:),HscJ); % source E field
HscM=1/Z0*cross01(ut(nb,:),EscM); % source E field
but should be:
EscJ=-Z0*cross01(unb(nb,:),HscJ); % source E field
HscM=1/Z0*cross01(unb(nb,:),EscM); % source E field

5. on m-file po17b, listed on pages 254-257 of the text, 2 lines must be changed:

line 24 is:
u2c1=unitr(cross01(unc1,[1 0 0]));
but should be:
u2c1=norm01(cross01(unc1,[1 0 0]));

line 64 is:
u2c2=unitr(cross01(unc2,[1 0 0]));
but should be:
u2c2=norm01(cross01(unc2,[1 0 0]));

This is without a doubt my favorite book ever! I had no direction in life until I picked this book up and read it. Lynn Allen has touched my heart in a way I have never experienced before. I laughed, I cried, I even read it twice! I hope to one day meet Lynn Allen.

I was disappointed in this book because I expected more from a Cadence Magazine author. This book is probably great for someone just starting out in AutoCAD, but for someone who's done AutoCAD since R10, I can't find a thing I don't already know within these pages.

The first chapter on tensor analysis is quite appealing and it is still refreshing for me who has experience with tensor analysis. The last chapter on unstructured grid generation is very helpful for me. I think it is a useful book for beginner in this field and can be a valuable reference book for experienced.

In computational fluid mechanics and solid mechanics, finite volume and finite element methods can deal with unstructured meshes relatively easily. So some of the grid generation techniques for finite difference method described in this book maybe less important than, say, 20 years ago.

I am a CFD engineer but no grid generation person. I bought this book due to its low price ($15 for a pdf format). I am not disappointed with this book at all. If you are comfortable with calculus and somewhat familar with index notation, the derivation in this book is very logical. I was able to use this book to generate a structural mesh using the algebraic method and differential method. The variational method seems to require funtional background and that is beyond me. Another good aspect about this book is that it gives the final equations that one needs to solve and a procedure that one needs to use to generate the grid. A good example is the Winslow method. I was able to use the equations in the book easily to generate the grid. Anyway, I would recommend this book to people who can read the first five pages of it without too much trouble. If you struggle with the first a few pages, this is probably not a good book for you.

Unlike authors of 4 other I own, Kelley seems to know what it is that engineers and draftsmen need to get up and running CATIA V5. He starts you out with realistic problems and drills. He covers various aspects of the program that you need to produce actual designs and drawings. Your confidence is immediate because you are immediatly PRODUCING.

CATIA V5 is a gigantic program that has many, many commands and abilities. So you must not expect to be an expert when you finish Kelley's book. The book has only about 210 pages. You will need a more comprehensive reference manual at hand such as Sham Tickoo's many-hundred pages book. Tickoo's book is a good reference manual, but not as good as Kelly's for getting you up and running with real, American engineering problems and drills.

Kelley's book comes with a number of errors and typos; so you must often figure out what is wrong. Sometimes Tickoo's book can help. But Tickoo's book has plenty of errors too.

CATIA is a very specialised and powerful CAD package. As the text discusses, it is capable of scaling up to handling large projects. Where, for example, you might design much of a plane entirely within it.

For professional engineers, this book is a good up to date reference for the latest major release, 5. Comprehensive descriptions that show the full capabilities of the package.

One caveat is that if you have never used CATIA before, this book might be a little overwhelming. But hopefully, you have at least used some other CAD package like AutoCAD or Ideas, so that you are familiar with the basic ideas.