Peter Jeffrey Booker

Peter Jeffrey Booker (born 1924) is a British engineer and technological drawing historian,^[1] known for his 1963 A history of engineering drawing, a seminal work on the history of technical drawing.^[2][3][4]

Life and work

Booker received his secondary education at the Sandown Secondary School at the Isle of Wight, and sequentially attended the Royal Naval Artificers Training Establishment, Torpoint at Cornwall.

From 1940 to 1954 he served at the Royal Navy, where he worked in the Ordnance department. He started on gun mountings, and later worked in gunnery fire control equipment on ships, in workshops and in the drawing office. In 1954 he became Assistant Secretary at the Institution of Engineering Designers,and was representative of the Institute on the City St Guilds Advisory Committee on Mechanical Engineering Drawing. Brooker became editor of The Engineering Designer, and member of the Newcomen Society.^[5]

In the 1950s and 1960s Brooker published most of his work on engineering drawing and its history. He received several rewards for his work, among them the Founder Column awarded by the Institution of Engineering Designers.^[6] He continued to work at the Institution of Engineering Designers,^[7] and in the year 1992-93 was elected director of the Institute for one year.

Work

A history of engineering drawing, 1963

In a 1965 review of A history of engineering drawing Chilton summarized the intention of this work:

Though engineering drawing serves a variety of purposes, such as are listed by the author, it is as a means of communication that P. J. Booker is mostly concerned with engineering drawing in this history, and in particular of communication via the representation of three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface; a means of communication, that is between the designer and constructor, since this particular communication must convey not only the qualitative aspects of the design but also provide the detailed dimensions that are ultimately necessary before the design be realized.^[2]

This work is regarded the standard history of engineering drawing.^[8]

Primary and secondary geometry

In his 1963 A history of engineering drawing Booker made the distinction between primary and secondary geometry.^[9] As Riley (2010) explained:

[Primary geometry is] the arrangement in space of lines of projection from a 3-D object to a plane of projection, and secondary geometry, the relationships between the points, lines and shapes of the drawn projection on a 2-D surface.^[10]

Inspired on this distinction John Willats in his 1997 Art and Representation. New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures^[11] defined projection systems in terms of primary and secondary geometry. Pascal lefèvre (2006) explained:

"Primary geometry is viewer-centered and describes pictures in terms of projection rays: "The geometry of projection of lines or rays from objects in the scene and their intersection with the picture plane to form an image or picture." (Willats, 1997:369). Most technical drawings can be described by primary geometry, but other formal projection systems as the reversed perspective can not be described by primary geometry. In those cases an object-centered system is needed, like secondary geometry, which Willats (1997:369) like Booker (1963) defines as: "The two-dimensional geometry of the picture surface, obtained without recourse to the idea of projection."^[12]

Selected publications

• Booker, Peter Jeffrey. Principles and precedents in Engineering Design. Institute of Engineering Designers, 1962.
• Booker, Peter Jeffrey. A history of engineering drawing. 1963, 1979.
• Booker, P. J. Written Contribution for Engineering. (1964).
• Booker, Peter Jeffrey, and W. E. Walters. Three dimensional projection drawing. Model & Allied Publications, 1968, 1985.

Articles, a selection:

• Booker, Peter J. "Gaspard Monge (1746-1818) and his Effect on Engineering Drawing and Technical Education." Transactions of the Newcomen Society 34.1 (1961): 15-36.
• Booker, P. J. "Written contribution appended to Conference on the Teaching of Engineering Design." Institute of Engineering Designers, London (1964): 3.
• Booker, Peter Jeffrey, Gerald C. Frewer, and Geoffrey Keith Charles Pardoe. "Project Apollo. The way to the moon." Project Apollo. The way to the moon., by Booker, PJ; Frewer, GC; Pardoe, GKC. New York, NY (USA): Elsevier Scientific Publishing, 8+ 216 p. 1 (1969).

Patents

• 1979. Patent US4166322 - Rulers for making axonometric projection drawings

References

1. Patrick Maynard (2005). Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of Graphic Expression. p. 10.
2. D. Chilton. "A History of Engineering Drawing by P. J. Booker." in: Technology and Culture. Vol. 6, No. 1, Museums of Technology (Winter, 1965), pp. 128-130.
3. Latour, Bruno. Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard university press, 1987.
4. Alder, Ken. Engineering the Revolution: arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
5. The Chartered Mechanical Engineer: The Journal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 10. The Institution, 1954. p. 429.
6. F. P. Kennett (1964). The Engineering Designer. p. 307
7. New Scientist, Vol. 9, nr. 223 (23 Feb. 1961). p. 489.
8. Carl Mitcham (1994). Thinking Through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy. p. 338.
9. John Willats (1997). Art and Representation: New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures. p. 10.
10. Riley, Howard. "Drawing as Transformation: From Primary Geometry to Secondary Geometry." XVOL. III Generative Art International conference. Retrieved December. Vol. 12. 2010.
11. Willats, John. 1997. Art and Representation. New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
12. Pascal lefèvre. "The construction of space in comics." In: Jeet Heer, Kent Worcester ed. (2009). A Comics Studies Reader. p. 158