When you first pick up this book, you know it must be about AutoCAD. At 579 pages, it's almost as thick as the AutoCAD Reference manual. This book, however, is about the 3D side of AutoCAD. Most everyone has seen the awesome architectural renderings that have been done with AutoCAD and 3D Studio. This book has a few renderings in it, and a section that gives you hints on how to setup a drawing for easier use in a rendering package.
January 8, 1997
The book contains 17 chapters. Chapters 1 through 14 demonstrate AutoCAD's 3D commands. Chapter 15 gives the reader a mechanical tutorial while chapter 16 is an architectural tutorial. Each chapter gives you a practical application of the concepts learned in chapters 1 through 14. Chapter 17 has 50 "ready-to-run" AutoLISP programs. The appendix lists all the AutoLISP programs and gives a brief description of each one.
The first trick the book shows you is how to use the thickness attribute to draw a simple figure in 3D. There is a very good explanation of the User Coordinate System (UCS) and how it can be used. After reading the book, you will have no excuse for not knowing how to use Dynamic View and VPoint. View Ports are explained and Surfaces are demonstrated quite nicely. The use of blocks, 2D and 3D, is covered. One subject that I have wanted to learn more about is Paper Space, which is also covered. There is a color section with renderings, which always seems to give me a burst of energy. Just seeing a house with furnishings and all the different textures makes me want to start a new drawing and design the next Biltmore.
The book has two tutorial sections, which cover the basic 3D drawing techniques. There are also 50 AutoLISP programs that can be used to help speed up 3D drawing generation, although the book does not cover AutoLISP programming. This book will be very useful to someone trying to learn more about 3D drawing in AutoCAD.
