Jeff Mirisola reviews Surfacing Book

Jeff Mirisola is the first person to review the Surfacing book. Check out his review.

I personally really like this book. Of course I’m a bit biased. You can say bad things about the 2007/2009 Bible (and many folks do, that book is just too big to please everyone), but the surfacing book is something I’m very proud of. There might be some things here and there that could be improved upon, but overall, I really like the way it turned out.

Jeff hit on a couple of the things I like best about the book – first is the yin/yang of finding the good and bad in the software and presenting it all in a useful way. The book is not a banner-waving homage to the greatness of SolidWorks, although it does that at times when the functionality deserves it. Nor is it a rabid critique of SolidWorks shortcomings in surfacing (although where appropriate, there is a little of that as well).

I aimed more at the practical guide from someone who has used the software.

Let me say right up front, this is not a “hold-my-hand” tutorial. If you think following steps in a list is “learning”, then this book is not for you. This book deals a lot with concepts, because there may come a time when you are called upon to design something other than something I have written a list of steps for. You have to be able to apply the tools in the software to what you are doing, and this book tries to present that kind of information. When stuff works, and when it doesn’t.  There may be some signature Matt Lombard opinion pieces here and there, but I try to show stuff by example, and as real world as I can make it.

I’ve read one of the Rhino books out there, and in my opinion, this is a better surfacing book. I’m not ashamed to write about surfacing from an engineering point of view, and the book is clearly about modeling as opposed to design. This distinction is I think why the book works from an engineering point of view without completely alienating more artistic types.

The book is just under 600 pages, printed on good quality paper and all the illustrations are in color. It is really nicely done. The 07/09 bibles are in grayscale, and its just difficult to make that look good sometimes.

I really think this type of book (for a niche topic) is the only place you can really find great content. General books are just too wide open. The software is just too huge to write about it in general. You’ve got to pare down your topic.

I’ve also got to say that I find writing for beginners has very few rewards. It seems the people who know the least about the topic are the harshest critics, which is more than a little ironic to me. I really prefer niche topics where you can find people who appreciate the information, and know that isn’t available anywhere else.

Anyway, thanks to Jeff for writing a nice review.