CAD and CAM Books

Whatever you plan to use DesignCAD for this out of print book is just what the people at Viagrafix should have included with their program. The program' reference manual is so bare bones that I found myself almost defeated in spite of the "on line support" the company brags about. This book explains parameters, layouts, techniques and much more that shows the total potential using this program. Inside DesignCAD is written just like a college text book. If you are serious about CAD this is a serious book. Now it is outdated by new programs. Hopefully the author will consider a new book. If you are using Viagrafix's new DesignCAD Pro 2000 this outdated book still offers good information that is totally lacking in the program's manual.

Excellent introduction to Architectural Desktop. Contains all the info needed to start creating buildings. Does not have the all the details necessary to fully use all the tools in the program, but hits the high points. It is important that the reader have a basic understanding of AutoCAD before using this book--the book does not teach AutoCAD basics--only covers Arch DT specifics. Good exercises written into the book to help with the learning process.

For those without a strong mathematical background, the software presented here can be useful in developing a good qualitative understanding of curves and surfaces. The interactive nature of the software lets you develop an intuition about such ideas as the parametric curve and surface, basis functions and Bezier curves.

Some readers will take to this much more easily than a conventional text. The coverage of the common ideas for constructing such items, in computer graphics can be very useful in dealing with more advanced graphics packages that assume this prior knowledge.

I like this book. It is simple and gets to the point. It's like having a teacher or guide by your side.

I think this is a good and helpful product. Essential for anyone trying to learn AutoCAD with no previous experience.

The book is very easy to follow using an example based approach. The book should not be tackled without a copy of autocad14. It is basically an introduction in depth in certain areas.For getting started on using autocad and to start creating drawings even in 3D it is excellent. The main criticism for me was that the book is only for beginners and does not go into enough detail on data exchange ie OLE ,DXF etc . I feel an overview of all the facilities working in the (dare I say it) microsoft enviroment with some more examples would have brought the book up to 5 stars.

Found this book to be very informative. The author covers the material in great detail and provides solutions to the practice examples in the back of the book. This is a complex subject, like any other progamming language, and I found I use the book more as a reference to troubleshoot my code.

AutoCAD in its 2006 version is quite formidable. Centuries of programmer time have been spent to refine this product. Thus a comprehensive description of what you can do with it would be a huge and perhaps offputting book. Omura provides an easy alternative.

He teaches the basic operations that you are likely to need. Enough to get you productively making simple three dimensional objects and manipulating their properties.

But, if you are migrating to AutoCAD 2006 because you need a new feature within it, you should probably consult a more thorough text. Chances are that the latest features are refinements that most new users would not be dealing with, and thus not covered by Omura.

This book is helpful for anyone that wants to master the complicated world of 3d Stidio VIZ. After going thru Autodesk's tutorials and not learning much, I turned to this book, and I am greatful. Now I have a much better understanding of "Viz", this is a must read book.

Good review of the basics. Great multimedia / interactive CD ROM. The tutorial actually demostrates the operation as a narrarator tells you what's going on. They didn't get much into time saving techniques, though. (Perhaps this is covered in more advanced tutorials).