This book was written with the premise of providing students the necessary foundation to advance understanding of both design and manufacturing. The latter is achieved through selection of appropriate topics and analytical methods in all aspects of design that are pertinent to CAD with the hope that students will embrace them with conviction. These topics, written in a clear and concise form, are followed by examples to guide the students and engineers through a wonderful learning experience.

In essence, CAD should provide the engineer more time to be creative, to conceptualize and formulate the problem definition, and interpret results derived from the analysis. The author philosophy is to teach through examples; hence, every topic covered is followed by examples to demonstrate the concepts. The basic engineering concepts covered in this book are independent of any specific software.

This textbook allows students to perform their exercises using MATLAB to facilitate the understanding that CAD is multidisciplinary in nature and that part of the design could be performed in conjunction with other programs or programming tools. This is definitely true in the variational design and parametric designs, where engineering equations are the engine behind the geometrical formulation and design of certain products.