Book excerpt: Materials Information for CAD/CAM addresses the problem of designing databases, expert system, communication systems, and decision support aids that can be integrated with manual and software-supported tasks in design and manufacture, in CAD and CAM. This book covers tasks of materials selection, materials process simulation, and materials modelling that involve access to materials identification or property information. Organized into eight chapters, this book begins with an overview of the use of materials information in engineering design and manufacture. This text then explains how computerized CAD/CAM systems change the ways in which this information has been effectively used. Other chapters consider the organizational and technical aspects of data interchange in general. This book discusses as well the requirements in representing materials information in databases. The final chapter deals with integrated design environments with respects to their capabilities for utilizing materials information. This book is intended to be suitable for anyone who is planning the construction, management, or use of any kind of engineering materials property information system.