Rae Earnshaw

David F. Rogers

In the third paper in this chapter, Mike Pratt provides an historical intro duction to solid modeling. He presents the development of the three most freqently used techniques: cellular subdivision, constructive solid modeling and boundary representation. Although each of these techniques devel oped more or less independently, today the designer's needs dictate that a successful system allows access to all of these methods. For example, sculptured surfaces are generally represented using a boundary represen tation. However, the design of a complex vehicle generally dictates that a sculptured surface representation is most efficient for the 'skin' while constructive solid geometry representation is most efficent for the inter nal mechanism. Pratt also discusses the emerging concept of design by 'feature line'. Finally, he addresses the very important problem of data exchange between solid modeling systems and the progress that is being made towards developing an international standard. With the advent of reasonably low cost scientific workstations with rea sonable to outstanding graphics capabilities, scientists and engineers are increasingly turning to computer analysis for answers to fundamental ques tions and to computer graphics for present~tion of those answers. Although the current crop of workstations exhibit quite impressive computational ca pability, they are still not capable of solving many problems in a reasonable time frame, e. g. , executing computational fluid dynamics and finite element codes or generating complex ray traced or radiosity based images. In the sixth chapter Mike Muuss of the U. S.

Theory and Practice

Computer Graphics Techniques

Computer Graphics in Engineering Education discusses the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) as an instructional material in engineering education. Each of the nine chapters of this book covers topics and cites examples that are relevant to the relationship of CAD-CAM with engineering education. The first chapter discusses the use of computer graphics in the U.S. Naval Academy, while Chapter 2 covers key issues in instructional computer graphics. This book then discusses low-cost computer graphics in engineering education. Chapter 4 discusses the uniform beam, and the next chapter covers computer graphics in civil engineering at RPI. The sixth chapter is about computer graphics and computer aided design in mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota. Kinematics with computer graphics is the topic of Chapter 7, while Chapter 8 discusses computer graphics in nuclear engineering education at Queen Mary College. The last chapter reviews the impact of computer graphics on mechanical engineering education at the Ohio State University. This book will be of great interest to both educators and students of engineering, since it provides great insight about the use of state of the art computing system in engineering curriculum.

Computer Graphics in Engineering Education

This text offers complete coverage of computer graphics. As a textbook, it can be used effectively in senior-level computer graphics courses or in first year graduate-level courses. It features an emphasis on rendering and in-depth coverage of all classical computer graphics algorithms. Procedural Elements of Computer Graphics also contains more than 90 worked examples, and is suitable for use by professional programmers, engineers, and scientists.

Procedural Elements for Computer Graphics

NURBS (Non-uniform Rational B-Splines) are the computer graphics industry standard for curve and surface description. They are now incorporated into all standard computer-aided design and drafting programs (for instance, Autocad). They are also extensively used in all aspects of computer graphics including much of the modeling used for special effects in film and animation, consumer products, robot control, and automobile and aircraft design. So, the topic is particularly important at this time because NURBS are really at the peak of interest as applied to computer graphics and CAD of all kind.

With Historical Perspective

An Introduction to NURBS

The major thrust of this book is to present a technique of analysis that aids the formulation, understanding, and solution of problems of viscous flow. The intent is to avoid providing a "canned" program to solve a problem, offering instead a way to recognize the underlying physical, mathematical, and modeling concepts inherent in the solutions. The reader must first choose a mathematical model and derive governing equations based on realistic assumptions, or become aware of the limitations and assumptions associated with existing models. An appropriate solution technique is then selected. The solution technique may be either analytical or numerical. Computer-aided analysis algorithms supplement the classical analyses. The book begins by deriving the Navier-Stokes equation for a viscous compressible variable property fluid. The second chapter considers exact solutions of the incompressible hydrodynamic boundary layer equations solved with and without mass transfer at the wall. Forced convection, free convection, and the compressible laminar boundary layer are discussed in the remaining chapters. The text unifies the various topics by tracing a logical progression from simple to complex governing differential equations and boundary conditions. Numerical, parametric, and directed analysis problems are included at the end of each chapter.

David F. Rogers

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