Linux 3D Graphics Programming [Paperback]

Norman Lin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2001

Currently, there are no directly competitive titles to Lin's title, and considering the explosive growth of not only 3-D graphics but the Linux operating system, this new book will be valuable to developers interested in graphics programming. The CD-ROM contains a series of animated 3-D videos illustrating key 3-D graphics concepts, such as the transformation from world space into camera space. It also features Blender 3-D, a professional quality 3-D modeler.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Norman Lin is a professional software consultant with more than 15 years of international software development experience and a MS degree in computer science.

His many professional interests combine the technical with the creative, covering such areas as computer graphics, music theory, chaos theory, fractals, L-systems, formal languages, and game programming. He has worked on such diverse projects as 3D data visualization, Internet knowledge management, and OO prototyping. Lin lives in Graz, Austria.

Product Details

• Paperback: 598 pages
• Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc. (April 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155622723X
• ISBN-13: 978-1556227233
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,314,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A+ for effort, B+ results, April 19, 2002

By 

larryq (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Linux 3D Graphics Programming (Paperback)

I have to give the author enormous kudos for tackling this project. Over the course of two volumes (I'm referring to this book and his companion "Advanced" Linux 3D Graphics Programming), he builds, from the ground up, a complete working 3D engine, complete with texture mapping, collision detection and world editing capability.

His writing and explanations on the topics at hand are very well written, and whenever the reader needs a diagram to make sense of something, there's invariably just the right one at hand to help him through it.

It's really amazing, when you step back, to see just what is covered in these books. Not only are all major 3D graphics programming issues dealt with, but the author also takes time to discuss programming topics such as design patterns and why he uses them in his code.

Having said all this, I did find some problems with the books, problems which kept me from giving 5 stars:

1. Some of the code is difficult to follow. Really difficult. The polygon engine created by the author uses double-pointers indexed by arrays, and folks, that gets tough to read after a bit. In particular, I couldn't follow his polygon clipping code very well at all, nor his screen creation code, which involved a lot of bit-shifting, none of which was really explained all that well in the text. A bit of a lapse from the author I thought, very atypical.

2. The author wanted his code to work with fixed and floating point math, and for that purpose he created macros for doing things like multiplication and division. All well and good, but again it hurts readablity to have all of those macros in the code when all you're trying to do is multiply two numbers together. Almost any CPU made in the past five years can handle floating point math very well, and so I don't see the need for fixed-point adjustments in the code. Just an opinion, others can disagree.

3. The sample programs seem a bit lacking. After 300 pages, your reward is to see a program with a few flat-shaded polygons spinning around. It's hard to work up enthusiasm and bull through the book when that's your reward. Sorry if that sounds too harsh!

4. The world editor was written with Perl, and... well, it adds another layer of complexity that maybe didn't need to be there. The syntax gets very scary very quickly.

I could also say something about the fact that the author seems hot to trot for free development tools (Blender for modeling, xxgdb compiler, etc.), when maybe using some low-priced commercial products would have allowed for quicker progress and better results. I'm talking about expensive... tools here, not 3D Studio Max. Again, only one man's opinion here.

Overall, it's a fine two-volume set, and if you want to see a 3D engine built from scratch, take a gander at this and prepare to learn how the magic works. Just don't expect to skate through it with no effort on your part.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Author, June 1, 2001

By 

nlin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Linux 3D Graphics Programming (Paperback)

First and foremost: Check out the book's page on the web for the latest information and a detailed table of contents.

Linux 3D Graphics Programming is volume I of a two-volume work. Volume II (Advanced Linux 3D Graphics Programming) is due out in July 2001.

This book is for the beginning to intermediate 3D programmer. It explains both practical and theoretical issues involved in programming real-time 3D graphics applications under Linux.

What makes this book unique:

1) It explains every concept thoroughly, with an intuitive, *geometric* approach. Ever wondered what the homogeneous "w" coordinate is? Ever wondered *why* 3D graphics "look 3D"? Or what Renaissance paintings can teach us about 3D graphics? What "perspective projection" actually means? How you can do "Descent-style" camera rotation, and why this works? This book explains all the fundamentals, in a clear way, and lays a solid theoretical foundation.

2) It explains the often neglected topic of 3D modeling, showing how to use the 3D modeler Blender (included on the CDROM) to create and import 3D models into your programs. This means you can create great looking models and cool 3D programs. Forget about simple rotating cubes - you can make models as complex as you like. This book shows you how.

3) All of the programs are written using freely available tools under Linux (GCC, Mesa). The code itself is released under the GPL, free for use in your projects.

4) The code also compiles under Windows.

5) Plenty of standalone demonstration programs plus a 3D application library. No code is left unexplained. Every class, member variable, and method is explained in the book, in a bottom-up fashion. There is no hand-waving, and there are no black-boxes in the code. You get to experience and understand the development of the entire code base, with all of the theoretical AND practical issues.

The advanced volume, due out in July 2001, is targeted at readers who have already mastered the concepts in this first volume. It covers such topics as texture- and light mapping, z buffering, portals, BSP trees, particle systems, collision detection, digital sound, physics, content-development systems, and more.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Read, July 27, 2001

By 

Douglas Linder (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Linux 3D Graphics Programming (Paperback)

To start with, let me just say; I'm a second year electrical engineering / computer science uni student. In Australia. =P

This is a great book.

1) It actually goes into the detail of X11 pixel formats and xshm. As an xlib programmer the generic class to determine pixel formats is great. It is superior is a number of ways to the evil O'Reily books in its dealing with XImage and graphics under linux.

2) It ALSO goes over the basic foundations of 3d programming, and software rendering; as well as introducing the concepts of interfaces using c++ classes (factories, etc).

For anyone who has not done this before, this is an excellent book. For anyone who has: It is probably still worth a read. Unless you are truely a master at linux graphics programming, there's probably something to be gleaned from this book. And if you are a master, why would you buy it?

However, fair warning: This is not a trivial topic. Reading the book end to end will achieve nothing. I have highlighted (in bright yellow marker ;) about 1/2 the book. And spent a lot of time drawing pictures and trying understand what it said. This book requires a fair bit of study. I took me what? About 3 weeks to work through the whole thing.

Having said so, it wasn't hard. I just haven't done much of this before, so I spent a lot of time programming examples to prove that the actually worked. =P

Anyhow: I enjoyed the book. I thought it was worth while. :) My regards to the author!