Customer Reviews

Autocad and Its Applications Basics: Release 14

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have used Terence Shumakers books for teaching for the last eight years. This latest one covering AutoCAD 2000 is no exception. It is one of the best books to teach from, excellent subject explanations and easy to follow samples exercises. I do disagree with the order Terence follows, but it is easily overcome and does not reflect on the book its self.

I have had a chance to review sections of this publication in our local library. I found that it is truly a well written book with lots of exercises and helpful hints for the drafting/design discipline. However, I did not find anything on 3D modeling. Perhaps, you can mention a similar publication (same authors?) with the 3D modeling feature, treated with the same details. Thanks for the info. Is this book available in Toronto, Canada? (bookstore please?).

While this text covers a great deal of information and is required at community colleges it's as exciting to read as drug warning labels. And you practically need a rossetta stone to drag the pertinent information out of the chapters.

The student CD included requires the student to have AutoCad loaded on their computer to access it. So you need to invest another $800 or so in a seperate computer program in order to access the student disk at home. Otherwise...well, it makes a cool drink coaster.

I only acquired this book because it was required for my class. I hardly even cracked the cover. I used my 2004 copy of "Mastering AutoCad" by George Omura and highly recommend that instead. I only refered to Shumaker's book when encountering a 2005 upgrade (of which there aren't many).

Omura's book has an easy to use index, goes beyond "the basics" and includes a disk with a trial version of ACAD that you can use for at least 30 days. I could look up commands and subjects in the index, breeze through the overview and be functional in minutes.
Shumaker's book is adequate if you have zero ACAD experience, the patience of Job to trudge through the text, no other options or someone is offering to just GIVE it to you. Otherwise and for personal use, go for Omura.

Oh, and don't forget, AutoCad has a HELP menu (F1) if you happen to be stuck for an answer during a test.

while this book appears to exhaustively document the program, I could rarely find helpful information when I ran into specific problems while using the program. I'm currently looking for a book with better clarity and organization

In the book there are purple boxes with commands in them that are really helpful.

Although I've learned a great deal from Autodesk's Lynn Allen through her bi-monthly videos, this is a great book to take with you, read, and try out the examples using your Autocad software. An excellent tool for the classroom.

thanks, the book got here in good conditions but the corners were a little tilted.