Book: Engineering Design with SWX2001

After SWX2001 came out, I decided to buy a book that I thought would help me to get into the program. I went to Amazon.com and searched for a few books. There aren't many out there, and I wanted to let you know which one to stay away from (remember, this is an opinionated book review, nothing offical).

Engineering Design with SolidWorks 2001 by David & Marie Planchard, 390 pages, Schroff Development Corp. Publications, ISBN: 1585030740.

This book tempts you into buying it by saying that many of the projects are based on real-world companies, which will give a better understanding of the industry and how SWX fits into the big picture. I found this book to be poorly published, and lacking in any new information that one could already find with SWX's own documentation and online help.

This book is nothing more than a regurgitation of the User's Guide, and doesn't provide any insights on the true complications of either implimenting or managing SWX. I found the writing rather poor, and figures used throughout the book were very poor, almost looking worse than a copy-of-a-copy.

I suggest you save the $60 on buying this book, and pick up an additional 256mb of memory instead. "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."

 

[SBaugh]

Now I already had a good understanding of SW when I reviewed this book. I found that the "Inside SW" is a good book by David Murray. Of course that was the first edition. I haven't seen the 2nd one yet.

The "SW for Autocad Users" book, I have heard both that "it is GOOD!" and that "it is BAD!

I believe it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Have a good weekend everyone,
Scott Baugh, CSWP
George Koch Sons,LLC
Evansville, IN 47714
sjb@kochllc.com

 

[MadMango]

I totally agree that all reviews are nothing but opinions and are "in the eye of the beholder."

SolidWorks for AutoCAD Users by Greg Jankowski is actually a good book if you are new to parametric modeling. It helps to get the AutoCAD user out of the 2D mindset, and into the 3D world. It does a good job of presenting a task and it's solutions from the perspective of doing it in AutoCAD and then in SWX. But, if you've used SWX for more than 3-4 months, then you might not find it very helpful. It's great for beginers though.

Enjoy your weekend if you have one. "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."