Texture, more correctly crystallographic texture, is the crystallographic orientation of the multitude of individual crystallites, or grains, that make up metals, ceramics, minerals, and most other solid-state materials. Engler, a metallurgist with a German aluminum company, and Randle (materials science, Swansea U., Wales), a veteran specialist in electron backscatter diffraction, explain the various methods for studying texture at different scales and to obtain different measures. Among their topics are descriptors of orientation, measuring macrotexture and evaluating and representing the data, the Kikuchi diffraction pattern, techniques based on transmission electron microscopy, orientation microscopy and orientation mapping, and the crystallographic analysis of interfaces and connectivity. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)