Abstract: The situations of research on graphics thinking in the teaching of engineering graphics are investigated for the past 30 years, and the importance of graphics thinking research to the reform and development of engineering graphics education is pointed out. Through summarization and further research, the definition of graphics thinking is defined, the graphics thinking methods and its characteristics are illustrated, the process model of graphics thinking is presented, and the methods for graphics thinking training are described concretely. Some problems of graphics thinking for the future research are described.

Key words: engineering graphics, survey, graphics thinking, graphics education