Customer Reviews

Computational Geometry: An Introduction (Monographs in Computer Science)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most of the papers that I've read on computational geometry refer to this text -- and for good reason. There's many good algorithms to be found here.

The book only gets 4 stars because it's hard to read. It took me several tries to pick up the ideas in this text. I think the De Berg text is MUCH easier to read.

The book is also getting a little dated. Some of the topics have come a long way since the 80's.

This book seems to be in most University libraries if you have that option.

The ideas and algorithms presented in this book are clear enough for straight implementation in code. I have long experience in developing comercial and production software for VLSI layout applications, which made extensive use of the algorithms presented in this book.
I also use some chapters of this book as a part of a graduate course in VLSI layout algorithms being tought at the Technion, Israel. The contents of this book is well understood by EE and CS students.
I personally love this book, which introduced me into the area of computational geometry and its applications.

This book is a classic, in fact the author's PhD thesis created this field, but this book is too old for any meaningful graduate work. There are new bounds and algorithms on almost all topics, which makes this a somewhat undesirable book. Also, this book has failed to keep me interested in it, while I am reading it...

This book is to computational geometrists what the King James Version of the Bible is to christian fundimenalists. Even though newer translations of the Bible are easier to read, somehow nothing sounds quite so authentically like the voice of God than those Elisibethen cadences, written in an almost archaic language....

...similarly for this book. Many times, the descriptions of algorithms presented in this book are made unnecesarily hard by very arcane langauge.

But this book is authoritative and definitive in a way that no other text on computational geometry is ever likely to achieve. Even though there are any number of books which are newer and easier to read, it seems like this the one book on the shelf of every serious computational geometer I know.

I have just happened to exhume this book from my library, after it spent some years gathering dust above the shelf. In spite of the long time I have not being reading it, it still retains the full meaning it showed me when I was using in calculations relating radar domain definition. May be the textbook wins by far the comparison to the current vague and inflated computer publications, may be it is not a manager-oriented issue but it is for nearly specialistic use, you find in it clearly stated, and straight, answers to the questions you meet, or at least a definite reference where a more detailed explanation can be find. It presents interesting problems, and explains you how to solve them. I think it is the best you can say about a computer science book.

The book is comprehensive in computational geometry, and is suitable for research. But really difficult to understand. A student is difficult to read it without teacher's teaching. But people who research in computational geometry need the book.