Customer Reviews

Windows 2000 Graphics API Black Book

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3 star:		(2)
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This is a mammoth undertaking that was necessary in today's market of Windows-dominated graphics applications. This book may be too much for a beginner. However, for the serious graphics developer, this is a must-have reference and handbook all-in-one. Before seeing this book, my favourite hard-core computer graphics book was "Computer Graphics" by James D. Foley and Andries van Dam. This "black book" does an better job when it comes to the Microsoft Windows-specific approach of doing things. From page one it jumps into a direct explanation of topics. It cuts through the chase when it comes to developing high-performance applications. The examples are in C++ however as a Delphi developer, I used it effectively in a major project that involved both video capturing and image processing in the medical software industry.

This book covers in details the GDI API and the DirectDraw API. Even if it was written for Windows 2000, it is safe to assume that these APIs have not changed much in Windows XP. The source code samples contain mistakes but it remains an excellent reference. I recommend this out of print book because you can probably get it for a very cheap price.

Frankly amazing to me that in a Win graphics book of this size and, in other respects, scope and excellence, that neither "metafile" nor "enhanced metafile" is in the index, nor is there anywhere else a mention that I could find. Consistent with this, all of the metafile-related GDI functions are missing as well---hardly a "comprehensive treatment of the Windows GDI" as stated in the Introduction. It seems to me that this rather large omission deserves at least a tiny explanation or justification somewhere, but there isn't one...instead it appears we are pretending that metafiles are not part of the Win2K GDI. A bit surreal!

DLS

More thorough than Petzold's book.
Bought it for the chapter on Profile Printing which I could not find anywhere else.

Need I say more? If so... This book is about 3 to 4 inches thick (~1200 pages) and covers just about anything you want to know about windows graphics from creating a bitmap and putting a dot on the screen to morphing and distorting images. When you get done with this book you could easily write your own Photo Editor. Full of code examples and explanations. Very well written. I own 30+ programming books and this (as well as the other Coriolis Black Books) is one of my favorites. I would say perfect for a Newbie all the way up to a Power User. I have been looking for a book like this since Windows 95 came out. Bottom Line: BUY THIS BOOK!!!

if u r a graphx programmer , so u ve to own this book , even if u r not a c++ programmer, this book book is a very important reference.
it's a mind of graphics information.