Product Review

Providing a clear, concise treatment of the essential topics addressed in a modern engineering design graphics course, this text concentrates on teaching hand-drawing as a skill and a vital component of the design process. Unlike texts that reduce drawing to a computer-based task, Leake and Borgerson's book emphasizes the role of sketching in conceptualizing a design solution. This reflects the growing trend in engineering graphics courses, in which hand-drawing is used for developing a design and computer tools are used for the final iterations. By providing a brief, skills-based approach, this reasonably priced volume - which includes several hundred sketching problems - is well positioned to offer a compelling alternative to the large volumes by Giesecke and Bertoline. Alongside its coverage of hand-drawing skills, this text also provides a chapter on computer-aided design software, with an emphasis on parametric solid modeling.