Pro/Engineer Wildfire (with CD-ROM containing Pro/E Wildfire Software) [Paperback]

Louis Gary Lamit (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0534400833 | ISBN-13: 978-0534400835 | Publication Date: September 2, 2004 | Edition: 1

Utilizing a variety of hands-on lessons, this book introduces students to the basics of Pro/Engineer Wildfire™, one of the most widely used CAD/CAM software programs in the world. The author's basic premise is that the more parts, assemblies, and drawings one creates using Pro/E Wildfire, the better one learns the software. With this in mind, each lesson introduces a new set of commands with an incrementally more difficult set of parts while building on previous lessons. The parts created (in Part One of the book) are used to create assemblies (Part Two) and generate drawings (Part Three). Students are able to work with actual completed parts, assemblies, and drawings in a short-lesson format, instead of building large complex projects where basic commands may be overshadowed and lost in a complicated process. Rather than attempting to cover all of Pro/E Wildfire's features, this book provides an introduction to the software, makes one reasonably proficient in its use, and establishes a firm basis for exploring and growing with the program beyond the classroom.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Louis Gary Lamit is the former head of the drafting department and CAD facility manager, and is currently an instructor at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, where he teaches computer-aided design. Mr. Lamit has worked as a drafter, designer, numerical control (NC) programmer, technical illustrator, and engineer in the automotive, aircraft, and piping industries. A majority of his work experience is in the area of mechanical and piping design. He started as a drafter in Detroit (as a job shopper) in the automobile industry, doing tooling, dies, jigs and fixture layout, and detailing at Koltenbar Engineering, Tool Engineering, Time Engineering, and Premier Engineering for Chrysler, Ford, AMC, and Fisher Body. Mr. Lamit has worked at Remington Arms and Pratt and Whitney Aircraft as a designer, and at Boeing Aircraft and Kollmorgan Optics as an NC programmer and aircraft engineer. Mr. Lamit also owns and operates his own consulting firm, and has been involved with advertising and patent illustrating.

Product Details

• Paperback: 858 pages
• Publisher: CL-Engineering; 1 edition (September 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0534400833
• ISBN-13: 978-0534400835
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #940,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Presently I live and work in the San Jose, California area- see work bio at bottom.

My main activity outside of work activity is writing books (35 and counting). Not very lucrative but I have been at it since 1978 and can't seem to stop.
__________________________________
Also see:
walkingfishbooks.com
I write childrens books and journals for outdoor activities.
An educator for almost 40 years, Gary Lamit has taught second grade through university and has published over 30 books on a variety of subjects. Married with grown kids, he currently teaches at a community college. He spends considerable time reading children's books to his pre-school extended-family members, whose number seem to increase every few months!

From WalkingFish Books:

*My Fishing Journal
*Fishing Journal
*Resources for boating and fishing in Santa Clara County, Califorinia
*Wally the Walking Fish
*Wally the Walking Fish meets Madison and Cooper
__________________________________
Also see:
scholarshipforveterans.org
I founded and fund Scholarships for Veterans, a not for profit organization awarding community college scholarships to recent veterans in Santa Clara Valley.
__________________________________
Also see (from my work site):
cad-resources.com

For the last 25 years, Louis Gary Lamit has been a full time instructor and department head at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, where he teaches Pro/ENGINEER, Pro/SURFACE, Pro/SHEETMETAL, Pro/NC, and Expert Machinist, and Unigraphics NX. He does Pro/E training for local industry in Silicon Valley.

Mr. Lamit has worked as a drafter, designer, numerical control (NC) programmer, technical illustrator, and engineer in the automotive, aircraft, and piping industries. A majority of his work experience is in the area of mechanical and piping design. He started as a drafter in the Detroit area in 1966 (as a job shopper) in the automobile industry, doing tooling, dies, jigs and fixture layout, and detailing at Koltanbar Engineering, Tool Engineering, Time Engineering, and Premier Engineering for Chrysler, Ford, AMC, and Fisher Body. He has worked at Remington Arms and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft as a designer, and at Boeing Aircraft and Kollmorgan Optics as an NC programmer and aircraft engineer.

He owns and operates his own consulting firm, and has been involved with advertising, and patent illustration.

He is the author of over 30 textbooks, workbooks, tutorials, and handbooks.

Mr. Lamit received a BS degree from Western Michigan University in 1970 and did Masters work at Wayne State University and Michigan State University. He has also done graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley and holds an NC programming certificate from Boeing Aircraft.

Since leaving industry, he has taught at all levels (Melby Junior High School, Warren, Michigan; Carroll County Vocational Technical School, Carrollton, Georgia; Heald Engineering College, San Francisco, California; Cogswell Polytechnical College, San Francisco and Cupertino, California; Mission College, Santa Clara, California; Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California; Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, Kentucky; and De Anza College, Cupertino, California).

His books include:

*Industrial Model Building, with Engineering Model Associates, Inc. (1981),
*Piping Drafting and Design (1981),
*Piping Drafting and Design Workbook (1981),
*Descriptive Geometry (1983),
*Descriptive Geometry Workbook (1983), and
*Pipe Fitting and Piping Handbook (1984), published by Prentice-Hall.
*Drafting for Electronics, (3rd edition, 1998),
*Drafting for Electronics Workbook (2nd edition 1992) and
*CADD (1987), published by *Charles Merrill (Macmillan-Prentice-Hall Publishing).
*Technical Drawing and Design (1994),
*Technical Drawing and Design Worksheets and Problem Sheets (1994),
*Principles of Engineering Drawing (1994),
*Fundamentals of Engineering Graphics and Design (1997),
*Engineering Graphics and Design with Graphical Analysis (1997), and
*Engineering Graphics and Design Worksheets and Problem Sheets (1997),published by West Publishing (ITP/Delmar).
*Basic Pro/ENGINEER in 20 Lessons (1998) (Revision 18) and
*Basic Pro/ENGINEER (with references to PT/Modeler) (1999) (Revision 19 and PT/Modeler), published by PWS Publishing (ITP).
*Pro/ENGINEER 2000i (1999) (Revision 2000i), and
*Pro/E 2000i2 (includes Pro/NC and Pro/SHEETMETAL) (2000) (Revision 2000i2),
published by Brooks/Cole Publishing (ITP).
*IX Design, CD book (2001) ImpactXoft
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire (2003) (Revision Wildfire) published by Brooks/Cole Publishing (ITP).
*Introduction to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 (2004) (Revision Wildfire 2.0) published by SDC.
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 (2006) (Revision Wildfire 3.0). Thomson Engineering (ITP)
*Moving from 2D to 3D CAD for Engineering Design (2007)BookSurge
*Moving from 2D to 3D CAD for Engineering Design (2007) MobiPocket eBook
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 Tutorial (2007) BookSurge
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 Tutorial (2007) MobiPocket eBook
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 Tutorial (2008) BookSurge
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 Tutorial (2008) MobiPocket eBook
*Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 (2008) Cengage Learning

From WalkingFish Books:

*My Fishing Journal
*Fishing Journal
*Resources for boating and fishing in Santa Clara County, Califorinia
*Wally the WalkingFish
*Wally the Walking Fish meets Madison and Cooper

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best Pro Engineer Book Available, August 10, 2006

By 

Dylan J. Lawrence "Dylan" (Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pro/Engineer Wildfire (with CD-ROM containing Pro/E Wildfire Software) (Paperback)

While fairly good at describing how to use the tools available in Pro-E, the Definitions and explanations of conceptual use of these tools is lacking. I do not recommend this book for people who are trying to learn Pro Engineer on their own. Use of this book is best in an setting where an experienced user or instructor are available for assistance.
For 100$ this book does not stand up to a 50$ book for learning another problem like Alias Maya. But certainly because of a lack of competition, this book seems to be the best choice.

Positive Aspects:
1)After completing this book you should have a strong grasp of the fundamental of Pro Engineer and should be able to use most of its processes and tools.
including:
-Extrusions
-Revolving Protrusions
-Cuting (negative Protrusions)
-Revolving Cuts
-Chamfering
-Threading.
-Setup and Environmental settings
-Dimensional Values
-The Configuration File system
-Datum planes
-Layers
-Parent/Child Hierachy system
-Sketching and 3d navigation
-Point manipulation
-Unit control
-Shell (Molding) Tool
-Sweeps and Trajectories
-Exploded views and Sub assembly Drawings
-Drawing layouts, Title Blocks, Print views, and Part Lists


2) Good layout, and clear instructions. Pictures are complete, and do a good job of illustrating steps. Step by step instructions allow for quick results in making models and learning the software when understood.

3) After completion of the book, most fundamental products can be completed in Pro-E. While it is not a complete explanation of all of its features, the topics covered more that give a solid foundation for creating most 3d objects and using models to communicate in the real world.

Negative Aspects:
1) Definitions and Explainations
The books is horrible at explaining why tool and process are important of necessary, or defining what they are. People unfamiliar with CAD lingo, will struggle with this books definitions.

Take this Quote explaining Datums and Layers: "Datums and layers are two of the most useful mechanisms for creating and organizing your design (Fig. 5.1). Features such as datum planes and datum axes are essential for the creation of all parts, assemblies, and drawings using Pro/E. Layers are an essential tool for grouping items and performing operations on them, such as selecting, displaying or blanking, plotting, and suppressing. Any number of layers can be created. User Defined names are available, so layer names can be easily recognized. Most companies have a layering scheme that serves as a default standard so that all projects follow the same naming conventions and objects/items are easily located by anyone with access. Layer information, such as display status, is stored with each individual part, assembly, or drawing."

This explanation is the only one located in the book explaining Datums and layers in the book, but no where does it define what a datum or layers is. It doesn't mention how datum planes are imaginary references from which measurements are made. Instead seems to say, that we should use them because everyone else does. This sort fluffy explanation just for the sake of having words, is riddles throughout the book. I found myself using online dictionaries such as wikipedia for definitions.

2)Incomplete instructions.
Following the instructions exactly won't necessarily construct a Lessons model. On lesson 2 I spent nearly 8 hours trying to figure out how to use the Create Defining Dimention tool. Only when I was able to grab a colleague, did I figure out that I needed to use the middle mouse button to release the dimension. A simple mistake which is exacerbated by the lack of description of how to use the tool in the book.

Many instructions in this book leave out very simple steps like a middle mouse button click, or the use of a tool or button that can create hours of problem solving and experimentation.

3) No explanation of Errors. Or problem Solving help.
Often, out-of-order commands in Pro-E will result in errors which are very difficult to problem-solve. Because of some of the incomplete instructions in this book, it can be very difficult to figure out what when wrong or how to fix it. It seems that if simple explanations on how Pro-E works, or how it gathers information were explained, that these mistakes could be avoided by learning users. Or even if warnings of some common errors that occur and how to fix them would be extremely helpful.

Conclusion:
Most other modeling and CAD programs like Alias MAYA, Ashlar-Vellum, and Solid works use different systems or have better documentation. A book guiding users through Pro-E really should be more expansive than what is found in Louis Lamit's book. A new comprehensive revision is seriously needed before a book like this can be used to learn Pro Engineer independently. However, for an assisted guide, this book is currently the best among a large crowd of bad books on Pro-E instruction.

When looking to learn Pro-E be ready to purchase more instruction, or spend time searching the Internet for help than this book can provide.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Bad buy, software is sheer torture, July 10, 2006

By 

John J. Falkenstine - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pro/Engineer Wildfire (with CD-ROM containing Pro/E Wildfire Software) (Paperback)

I bought this book with the intent of studying and learning. But..it wouldn't activate. After some help from PTC and resetting the URL to the right version it loaded, including the license activation. OOPS! the CDs are outdated, program shuts down. (No help whatsoever from PTC with this issue, they're clueless). Getting hold of the author, 2 new CDs are sent out immediately (But I did pay for the postage). The CDs are loaded, ProEngineer starts up, but can't download ANY of the files that the books uses for lessons because the new student version is inhibited. While the book gives good instructions, the rest is just pure incompetence. This course will teach you to really hate ProE before you even start to learn it, and frankly compared to Solidworks and Inventor Version 8, this is some seriously outdated software with weird file structures that tells me I'm running a mad mix of old software and patches to make it look "new". Just awful. I might get it working but I've been struggling with it for some 10 days now. I feel like I've been ripped off and if I don't get it working soon I want my money back from Amazon.com

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most comprehensive Pro/E Wildfire book; worth every penny!, November 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Pro/Engineer Wildfire (with CD-ROM containing Pro/E Wildfire Software) (Paperback)

Concise and well presented with a strong approach on appropriate parametric modeling techniques that are not usually covered in other books. This is with out a doubt the best-written introduction book on Pro/E I have ever seen. It is also quite good as an upgrade book. Lamits propensity for writing textbooks throughout the years truly comes out in this new version. I could not ask for a better manual to instruct my students with. Not only does it cover parametric modeling with a step-by-step approach were one learned technique builds on another, but it also covers assembles and detailing as well. It comprehensively covers the new WildFire interface and includes a free CD with a 60 to 120 day Tryout Edition that contains Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/MECHANICA. What a deal...If you find a better book I will eat this one!