Customer Reviews

OpenGL® Programming on Mac OS® X: Architecture, Performance, and Integration

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

 

 

This book has a lot of shining points. First, all its explanations are crystal clear, focused into the concepts and techniques OpenGL developers really need. Furthermore, the book comprises OpenGL architecture and configuration on OS X, and the various APIs we can use in order to create OpenGL applications, specifically, CGL, AGL, Cocoa, (our old buddy) GLUT, and X11 APIs. A chapter focused into API interoperability is also included. But there is much more information in this book: history notes, a germane review of Mac's hardware, OS X programming, compatibility between Mac platforms, and a discussion about OpenGL extensions. Appendices contain an useful Glossary and notes about Cocoa API for OpenGL in Leopard. Last but not least, the book is the OpenGL/Mac companion we were demanding.

This, however, is not a book for starting to learn OpenGL (use the OpenGL SuperBible or the Red Book instead). This is a book aimed at two categories of programmers: Mac developers in general, and those with OpenGL foundations who want to explore the enormous benefits of OpenGL development on Mac OS X. I do strongly believe that any OpenGL developer will benefit of studying this great book.

Personally, Chapter 11 is the one I've enjoyed the most. The technical wisdom revealed in such chapter almost justifies by itself the full cost of the book. It's such a fine chapter. The almost 5 pages covering the "Axioms for Designing High-Performance OpenGL Applications" are very interesting, particularly the care we must have when doing our OpenGL drawing in Object-Oriented programs; we could easily incur considerable glVertex overhead, if our code is not properly structured. The little tutorial section "Putting It All Together" includes a detailed optimization of an OpenGL program, "Please Tune Me". Delicious. Very Recommended.

I would agree with the other two reviewers that the book is in general well laid out and gives some good background for mac os and opengl. However I found the authors style somewhat meandering. For example VBOs are introduced, then something else is talked about and then back to the VBOs again, sometimes its very difficult to tell exactly which technology they are talking about.
This would be ok if the code samples made it easier - but in fact the code samples are a mess and largely missing the important examples referenced in the text.
For example the "please tune me" example mentioned in the other review? Not there. The vertex submission example - also in chapter 11 - also not there. I not sure whether its standard practice that I should be debugging the code as well in order to get it to work. A simple example - the paths to resources (eg Quicktime movies) are hard coded!
Currently it is a useful reference for me - but more because it brings to light a certain technology (eg an Apple extension) - but then I usually have to go elsewhere for it to be explained. In conclusion : it needs a good editor who understands the topic, and whomever the code was outsourced to, they should not be paid. In addition authors should not bother putting up a website if they are not going to respond to queries - just put a CD/DVD in the back of the book.

I purchased the Kindle edition, noticed others also had a hard time accessing the example code from the book website, and wanted to provide an answer to help other people out.

In the instructions on the book website, there is a password you have to find on a certain page and paragraph number in the text in order to open the example code zip file. Well, the Kindle version obviously has no page numbers. I fired off a message asking for the password using the contact form on the book website months ago, but never heard back.

I have since learned that the password for the zip file is "interleaved" and I had to use a program called StuffIt to unzip the file. Looking forward to going through the book now that I can access the examples.

Not a bad book, but if you buy the kindle edition you won't be able to unzip all of the source files that are provided on their website.

The password is on a certain page of the book, obviously there aren't page numbers for the kindle version. Quite irritating, emailing the publisher didn't help either.

No chance I'm buying both copies.

The text describe the nitty gritty of coding or porting your OpenGL applications to the Mac OS X environment. To a limited extent, the book has a general treatment of programming in OpenGL. But it is not meant as a text on the latter. Instead the focus is on the "issues" that making for possible problems on OS X.

One of which is that OS X has 2 types of windows, Carbon and Cocoa. It might perhaps be nicer if there was only one. But this is what you have to deal with. The Apple OpenGL (AGL) is the interface to Carbon, while you need the Cocoa OpenGL for Cocoa. It is slightly unusual that a major platform would have 2 types, and you may want to code just for one type. The book gives many details about both APIs, as well as the GLUT API. An evenhanded discussion. Different readers might well have different preferences.

Some of you should check out the discussion about multithreading, if intensive graphics performance is needed in your applications. The OS X OpenGL engine is said to have much better performance due to its multithreading, than typical serial engines.