Acknowledgements

I would like to offer special thanks to Stephanie McComb, my acquisitions editor, who was very supportive throughout the writing of this book.

A huge thank-you goes to Jade Williams, whose infinite organizing power kept the book on track. Jade kept up with a seemingly infinite number of versions of text documents and images, coordinating the writing, editing, and production of the entire book. She's been doing it for years, an amazing accomplishment!

My thanks to Lee Ambrosius (www.hyperpics.com), the highly knowledgeable technical editor for most of the book. Lee's comments improved the book throughout. In addition, Lee also took on about a quarter of the chapters to update; his expert help made this huge project a lot easier. He completely rewrote Chapter 37 to cover programming AutoCAD with VB.NET, which unfortunately had to go on the DVD due to page overruns. Finally, Donnie Gladfelter (www.thecadgeek.com/blog) did the technical editing for Lee's chapters. They are both AutoCAD authorities and you, the reader, benefit.

I also thank Marylouise Wiack for her precise editing of this very technical book, and all of the people at Wiley who helped with the production of this book and its DVD.

Thanks to Diane Li, AutoCAD Product Manager at Autodesk, Inc., for the excellent Foreword for this book. I also want to express my great appreciation to the members of Autodesk's beta and product teams who were very supportive throughout the beta period. Specifically, I want to thank Guillermo Melantoni, who "owns" the 3D features of AutoCAD, for answering my many questions. Many people contributed drawings and software for this book. I'd like to thank all of them. They have helped to make this book the most comprehensive book on AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT available.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Evan, who helped out around the house while I was writing, writing, and writing. Without his support, I could not have completed this book.