CAD and Rapid Protoyping for Product Design

The aim of this original book is to provide its primary intended readership of undergraduate and postgraduate product design students with an informative, engaging and useful text on computer aided design (CAD) and rapid prototyping (RP) and their current and future uses within contemporary product design practice. The intention is to provide students with information on fundamental principles and an illustrated overview of the ways in which CAD software and RP processes are used by product designers and are being developed through industry and academic research.

The book will be translated into twelve languages and published internationally. It includes over thirty case studies of leading companies, product designers and researchers from a variety of European and North American countries, critically illustrating different approaches taken to the use of CAD and RP within the development of a wide range of products across the breadth of the discipline.

CAD and RP are now a fundamental part of the professional practice of product design and therefore also of the education of product design undergraduate students but available written material is very limited and difficult to find. Although some existing books cover the subject of digital 3D design, they are broad in scope, often focus on visualisation and do not address the specific requirements of the product design student. Available books on Rapid Prototyping are aimed at postgraduate engineering students and professional engineers and are now dated due to the rapidly developing nature of this subject. This book includes original, comprehensive and up-to-date information on RP processes and is written and illustrated in a format which will appeal to product designers.

The original proposal for this book and draft chapters have been critically peer reviewed by leading academic practitioners in the field and also by commissioning and development editors at Laurence King Publishing.