To the authors of this text, teaching graphics is not a job; it is a “life mission.” We feel that teaching is an important profession and that the education of our engineers and technologists is critical to the future of our country.

Further, we believe that technical graphics is an essential, fundamental part of an engineer and technologist’s education. We also believe that many topics in technical graphics and the visualization process can be very difi cult for some students to understand and learn.
For these and other reasons, we have developed this text, which addresses both traditional and modern elements of technical graphics, using what we believe to be an interesting and straightforward approach.

Engineering and technical graphics have gone through signii cant changes as a direct result of the use of computers and CAD software. Although these changes are important to the subject of technical graphics, there is much about the curriculum that has not changed. Engineers and technologists still i nd it necessary to communicate and interpret designs, using graphics methods such as drawings or computer models. As powerful as today’s computers and CAD software have become, they are of little use to engineers and technologists who do not fully understand fundamental graphics principles and 3-D modeling strategies or do not possess high-level visualization skills.

This graphics text is therefore based on the premise that there must be some fundamental changes in the content and process of graphics instruction. Although many graphics concepts remain the same, the i elds of engineering and technical graphics are in a transition phase from hand tools to the computer, and the emphasis of instruction is changing from drafter to 3-D geometric modeler, using computers instead of paper and pencil.

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