Computer-aided Drawing and Design

This book is intended for engineers, computer scientists, managers and all those concerned with computer graphics, computer aided design and computer aided manufacture. The text attempts to give a basic understanding of the principles of computer graphics and show how these affect the process of engineering drawing. The text assumes a basic knowledge of engineering drawing, but assumes no prior computing knowledge. It aims to develop understanding through the medium of computer graphics and by the use of a number of computer graphics exercises. The book begins by giving an overview of the basics of hardware and software for CAD and then shows how these principles are applied, in practice, in the use of a number of graphics packages of different levels of complexity. The use of a graphical data base and the implications for computer aided design and manufacture are discussed. The book gives sufficient detail to explain the fundamentals of the computer graphics hardware and software, but without adopting the computer specialist approach. The book is intended to supplement user manuals by explaining the generic principles underlying many of the procedures which are common to a number of different systems.