Customer Reviews

User's Guide to Rapid Prototyping

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This is a good overview for someone needing a good, detailed-but-high-level review of the different technologies and methods of rapid prototyping.

Technology in Rapid Prototyping/Rapid Manufacturing methods changes so quickly that it seems almost futile to publish a book on the subject, but the information is sound. It's somewhat outdated, by now, being published in 2004. Full price from SME is definitely overpaying for this book.

Good background information, and if you can get it for a reasonable price, go for it. If super-current information isn't what you need.

"User's Guide to Rapid Prototyping" is the first text of this technology and process that I have read. Since everything it presents as a process is new as compared to the established processes that I am more familiar with, every section provided new information and practical knowledge to my reading effort. There is no better way to learning a methodology than to physically perform it but with this book and a decent manufacturing background, even a novice prototyper can sow a fertile field of choices to producing quick samples or short production runs avoiding expensive alternatives.
The author properly compliments the many contributors who supplied real world application studies. He ends the text with a complete glossary and index which with both together, upgrades this "user guide" to a formal desk reference. This book will satisfy any technically oriented individual who is seeking an appreciation of this narrowly understood technology.

Robert Szyka

I have come to question whether Todd Grimm and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) present a truly objective look at Rapid Prototyping and Additive Fabrication technologies. My concern, as detailed at
[...], comes from the fact that Grimm and SME seem a bit too close to think that either is providing an arm's length look at this important industry. If you do read this book, I encourage you to consider it more along the lines of propaganda than hard, objective reporting. That may be okay, since there is a lot of good to say about this industry. But I think Todd's reasons for writing this book were more to bolster his own marketing practice than to provide readers with valuable, actionable content.