The Inventor Mentor: Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2 [Paperback]

Josie Wernecke (Author), Open Inventor Architecture Group (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201624958 | ISBN-13: 978-0201624953 | Publication Date: March 11, 1994 | Edition: 1

Silicon Graphics, Inc., has developed two important software standards for graphics programmers. OpenGL is a powerful software interface for graphics hardware that allows graphics programmers to produce high-quality color images of 3D objects. The functions in the OpenGL library enable programmers to build geometric models, view models interactively in 3D space, control color and lighting, manipulate pixels, and perform such tasks as alpha blending, anti-aliasing, creating atmospheric effects, and texture mapping. Open Inventor is an object-oriented 3D toolkit built on OpenGL that provides a 3D scene database, a built-in event model for user interaction, and the ability to print objects and exchange data with other graphics formats. The OpenGL Technical Library provides tutorial and reference books for OpenGL and Open Inventor. The library enables programmers to gain a practical understanding of these important software standards and shows how to unlock their full potential. 0201624958B04062001

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Silicon Graphics, Inc., has developed two important software standards for graphics programmers. OpenGL is a powerful software interface for graphics hardware that allows graphics programmers to produce high-quality color images of 3D objects. The functions in the OpenGL library enable programmers to build geometric models, view models interactively in 3D space, control color and lighting, manipulate pixels, and perform such tasks as alpha blending, anti-aliasing, creating atmospheric effects, and texture mapping.

Open Inventor is an object-oriented 3D toolkit built on OpenGL that provides a 3D scene database, a built-in event model for user interaction, and the ability to print objects and exchange data with other graphics formats.

The OpenGL Technical Library provides tutorial and reference books for OpenGL and Open Inventor. The library enables programmers to gain a practical understanding of these important software standards and shows how to unlock their full potential.

0201624958B04062001

About the Author

Josie Wernecke, also a member of the Silicon Graphics staff, is the author of The Inventor Mentor and The Inventor Toolmaker and has written extensively about Open Inventor™ and other 3D graphics products.

0201624958AB04062001

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (March 11, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201624958
• ISBN-13: 978-0201624953
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,528,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Graphics & Multimedia > OpenGL

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to Open Inventor, August 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Inventor Mentor: Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2 (Paperback)

This book gives a good overview of how to use Open Inventor to depict three-dimensional objects and scenes. To my knowledge, this is the only introductory book on Open Inventor. Since there are no tutorial books on Open Inventor, this is where many people start when they want to use the language.

This book describes the capabilities and features of Open Inventor and gives brief examples, often with code. By the end of the book, you have a good idea of what Open Inventor can do and what parts of the language you would use for each feature. Unfortunately, many of the descriptions leave much to be desired. The book does not go into detail on how to use any feature. Many descriptions are given a light, cursory treatment.

If your goal is to start programming in Open Inventor, you will find many omissions. You will need to compensate for this by writing test cases and experimental code. You will also need to purchase The Open Inventor C++ Reference Manual, which will fill in many of the gaps in this book.

If, however, your goal is to get an understanding of what Open Inventor is, this book is perfect.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good book, November 13, 2001

By 

gk "arbman" (Redondo Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inventor Mentor: Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2 (Paperback)

I find that the general concepts presented in this book are still valid, even several years after its publication. Most of the commercial graphics software out there follows similar programming architectures and this book covers these fairly well.

However, you need to read the Open Inventor Toolmaker book to extend your Open Inventor Library distribution by adding more nodes/actions/engines, it also gives a much more in depth understanding. The real power of this library is that you can extend it fairly easily.

For the reference manual book for detailed specs about functions or callback methods, they are all available in the online manual pages now which are distributed freely by SGI since August of 2000.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong Buy. Open Inventor is an exciting 3D language, October 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Inventor Mentor: Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2 (Paperback)

I teach a five week course using this book. Students praise the material as being comprehensible, easy to understand, and creative. After each chapter the student should be able to perform certain open inventor tasks. I assign daily programming variations drived from the book. The accumulative effect is to have a student capable of maintain or developing applications in Open Inventor. The logical extension of the programming language is to develop using SGI tools or TGS tools. I think the Inventor Mentor book is one of the most prized Open Inventor books on the market. I adhere to the book when teaching Open Inventor exclusively. The Open Inventor book sheds a new light on the next five weeks which moves into VRML and Java. Interestingly, the mechanizms for controling nodes in the scene graph using Java are very similar to Open Inventor Node manipulation.