Customer Reviews

The NURBS Book (Monographs in Visual Communication)

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

 

 

I have a reasonable if dated math background, but I'm not a mathematician, I'm a programmer. I was able to work through enough of the math to extract very practical and useful knowledge for my graphics programming work.

I've gone through 3 other graphics book trying to get enough clear information on NURBs, but they were all either inadequate or obscure.

"The NURBS Book" is the one you want.

One of the greates assets of this book is that it is fairly comprehensive while still using a minimum amount of mathematics. The style is lucid, easy to follow; the numerous C-like algorithms can be adapted to one's own use, and deal with the most important aspect of NURBS. This is easily the best introductory NURBS text. The only problem I see is the lack of discussion for ray-surface intersection tests, which are necessary if NURBS are to be rendered by raytracing. I recommend "The Nurbs Book" to any engineers and graphics professionals interested in curved surfaces.

This book is best for those who have at least become familiar with Bezier and NURBS curves and surfaces and want to start implementing some programs.

The illustrations are not as clear as they could be so it may make it a little difficult for first-timers to understand. If you're unfamiliar with Bezier and NURBS curves then "Curves and Surfaces for CAGD" by Farin is probably a better place to start. But if you get Farin's book make sure to get the 5th edition since earlier editions aren't as clear.

With that said there is a wealth of information about creating and manipulating NURBS geometry in this book. All explanations are followed by code implementation. The code is a little difficult to understand at first, but if you stick with it you'll understand their coding style.

4 stars since thier layout and illustrations could be a lot clearer.

I own many books on the subject of NURBS. I always come back to this one while programming NURBS and reading research papers. It provides a fantastic foundation. It is an older book, so don't expect recent research to be included. For those that also want to know how to do ray tracing with NURBS surfaces look here:

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Good luck!

In this book, you will begin to understand what the good algorithms are. And most of all, you will master all the fundamental ideas about surface design, definitely including curve design. The most pity of this book is that we can not find the origin of the curves and surfaces, I mean how the inventor created them. Of course, it is the highest requirement for every author.

This is book is an authority in the subject. In last 13 years there is no book which is as detailed and through as this.

This book is complete, but there is too many math formula. The composition is appr. 80% formula explanation, 10% sample and 10% algorithm. So if you are a programmer you are wasting 3/4 pages of the book. But, since there's no other book about NURBS, as complete as this, you may want to buy this one or else you can take a look "Mathematical Element for Computer Graphics". It also contains 300 pages of NURBS.

Before owning this book i cassified NURBS as kind of mathematical definitions of curves and surfaces. I was wrong, now it opened my mind so i develop new NURBS surfaces based on well described primitives. Twisting, blending, extruding is good starting point to develop surface definitions you exactly need. How about lofting shapes along branch like path curves?