The Mathematica Guidebook: Graphics [Hardcover]

Michael Trott (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387950109 | ISBN-13: 978-0387950105 | Publication Date: October 14, 2004 | Edition: 1

This comprehensive, detailed reference provides readers with both a working knowledge of Mathematica in general and a detailed knowledge of the key aspects needed to create the fastest, shortest, and most elegant implementations possible. It gives users a deeper understanding of Mathematica by instructive implementations, explanations, and examples from a range of disciplines at varying levels of complexity. The three volumes - Programming, Graphics, and Mathematics - each with a CD, total 3,000 pages and contain more than 15,000 Mathematica inputs, over 1,500 graphics, 4,000+ references, and more than 500 exercises.
This second volume covers 2 and 3D graphics, providing a detailed treatment of creating images from graphic primitives such as points, lines, and polygons. It also shows how to graphically display functions that are given either analytically or in discrete form and a number of images from the Mathamatica graphics gallery. The use of Mathematicas graphics capabilities provides a very efficient and instructive way to learn how to deal with the structures arising in solving complicated problems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"Through an abundance of examples, this volume teaches the reader how to use Mathematica to visualize functions and data, manipulate graphics, and optimize their appearance. … the graphics GuideBook confronts you with a huge collection of 2D graphics, contour plots, plots of surfaces, free-form 3D surfaces, and animations. Hundreds of detailed examples and programs … illustrate visualization techniques, methods, and algorithms." (Willy Hereman, SIAM Review, Vol. 47 (4), 2005)

From the Back Cover

Mathematica is today’s most advanced technical computing system. It features a rich programming environment, two- and three-dimensional graphics capabilities and hundreds of sophisticated, powerful programming and mathematical functions using state-of-the-art algorithms. Combined with a user-friendly interface, and a complete mathematical typesetting system, Mathematica offers an intuitive, easy-to-handle environment of great power and utility.

"The Mathematica GuideBook for Graphics" provides a comprehensive step-by-step development of how to use Mathematica to visualize functions and data, manipulate graphics, and optimize their appearance. Two-dimensional graphics, contour plots, plots of surfaces, free-form three-dimensional surfaces, and animations are the core topics. Hundreds of detailed examples and programs show a large variety of visualization techniques, algorithms, methods, and tricks. These tools allow the reader to create virtually any possible graphic, from simple curves to scientific visualizations and artistic images and logos. Mathematica graphics functions are discussed in detail, explained in numerous examples, and put to work in programs that are all contained on the accompanying DVD.

Unique Features:

Step-by-step introductions to all Mathematica graphics capabilities

Comprehensive presentation of two- and three-dimensional graphics primitives and directives, as well as plotting capabilities for functions and data

Hundreds of unique and innovative scientific visualizations and artistic images

Website for book with additional materials and updates: http://www.MathematicaGuideBooks.org

Accompanying DVD contains all material as an electronic book with complete, executable Mathematica versions 4 and 5 compatible code and programs, rendered color graphics, and animations

Michael Trott is a symbolic computation and computer graphics expert. He holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and joined the R&D team at Wolfram Research in 1994, the creators of Mathematica. Since 1998, he has been leading the development of the Wolfram Functions Site http://functions.wolfram.com, which currently features more than 80,000 formulas and identities, and thousands of visualizations.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1376 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387950109
• ISBN-13: 978-0387950105
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.3 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prerequisites included make this a bargain and a gem, March 21, 2006

By 

M. Schaefer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mathematica Guidebook: Graphics (Hardcover)

It is unfortunate that two recent Amazon reviewers have found it difficult to understand the programming style in this book. I am a retired mathematician, now an antiquarian bookseller. Over the last 14 months, I have been reading all four books in the GuideBooks set and am preparing detailed written reviews on their content for publication elsewhere. The Graphics volume, like volumes 3 and 4, assumes that the reader has read the first volume, Programming, the full text of which is available with this volume. Indeed, this is explicitly stated in Section 0.1.2 of the Introduction:

"The four volumes of the GuideBooks are basically independent, in the sense that readers familiar with Mathematica programming can read any of the other three volumes. But a solid working knowledge of the main topics discussed in The Mathematica GuideBook to Programming -- symbolic expressions, pure functions, rules and replacements, list manipulations -- is required for the Graphics, Numerics, and Symbolics volumes. ... The whole suite of graphical capabilities and all of the mathematical knowledge in Mathematica are accessed and applied through lists, patterns, rules, and pure functions, the material discussed in the Programming volume."

Mathematica's pure functional notation and nonprocedural programming and symbolic pattern-matching can appear quite cryptic, being difficult to understand without the detailed background provided in the Programming volume. This is not to slight the ability of people who have been programming in Mathematica for many years, for one can write procedural, pure function [nonprocedural], or object-oriented programs in this robust system. Fortunately, the Graphics volume comes with a DVD that includes the complete text of all four volumes in the 5029-page GuideBooks series, including an index and hyperlinks to references and material found in the other volumes. Once one has read the needed chapters of the Programming volume, reading and understanding the programs in this outstanding Graphics volume is quite straightforward.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars huzzah! at last a book that taught me why I got Mathematica, March 18, 2005

By 

Brian Watson "brian from studiomomo.com" (New Westminster, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mathematica Guidebook: Graphics (Hardcover)

As an artist, I knew I was going to a raised eyebrow or two when I installed Mathematica on my computer. Math isn't art, the naysayers would chant.
Au contraire! And at last I have the book to prove it! Reading through normal Mathematica manuals gives you the briefest of cursory introductions to what the software can do in terms of graphics. Mr Trott's opus, however, was an answer to a prayer.
In excruciating detail he takes you step by step, teaching you how to develop the graphics that indeed show you that Math is Art! Page after page took my breath away, both at the complexity of the math involved and at the bauty that results.
Thank you!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A labor of love: Guidebook is a must have for Mathematica-using physicists, March 28, 2006

By 

Haiduke Sarafian (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mathematica Guidebook: Graphics (Hardcover)

Imagine thumbing through a technical 1340 page book full of Mathematica graphics codes. If you are a Mathematica user, you would love going over this book. Michael Trott's The Mathematica Guidebook to Graphics is a treasure. He generously shared his labor of love with the ever growing Mathematica user community. Each chapter of the book is flooded with a wealth of references; he has clearly done his homework. The number of reference chapters runs well into the hundreds, some chapters have more than 800. Reviewing the references helps to compliment the unfamiliar concepts. The book also has an accompanying DVD. I personally have not used the DVD; I'd rather rehash the codes manually and try to understand them by trail and error. Essential comments explaining the reasoning behind using the commands for the majority of the codes are embedded in the codes. This book is properly called Guidebook; it is not a text book. Its target audience is a semi-advanced Mathematica user. However, interested beginners may well learn a lot going over the codes. Chapters also end with suggestive practice problems, some challenging, but nonetheless rewarding. Michael is a physicist with profound mathematical knowledge and skills. He has developed his own Mathematica coding style. As we all may agree, Mathematica is the natural glue joining physics and mathematics together; the playground is Mathematica and the players are physics and math. In my view, this book needs to be in every Mathematica-using physicist's personal library. I highly recommend the book, and applaud Michael for his enormous efforts in bringing the extended graphics features of Mathematica to the fore.

Haiduke Sarafian, Ph.D.
John T. and Paige S. Smith Professor of Science
The Pennsylvania State University, University College