Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics) (Hardcover)

~ Philip Schneider (Author), (Author) "This book has many facets..." (more)
Key Phrases: orthogonal frustum, narrowest pairs, merged hull, New York, Configuration Cfg, Coordinate Axiom (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reinventing the wheel is a terrible waste of time, yet legions of computer programmers do exactly that every day. Geometric Tools for Computer Graphics gives the working graphics programmer a vast collection of programming examples, complex code snippets explained and ready to use. Each chapter is filled with more than just code examples--the explanations needed to understand why these examples work the way they do are given by authors with experience both in writing and in the field.

There is nothing here for the casual graphics programmer and everything for the serious 2-D and 3-D programmer. Thirteen chapters, three appendices, and a three-column index that spans over 30 pages cover everything about computer-graphic geometry, from the basics of using matrices and linear systems to intersecting 3-D objects.

The appendices alone are worth the price: "Numerical Methods," "Trigonometry," and "Basic Formulas for Geometric Primitives" are treasures filled with hard-core examples of the kind that can be put to use right out of the box. Less experienced programmers will find these to be invaluable references, but then there's the rest of the book--nearly 1,000 pages loaded with examples and theory, page after page of information written in a clear, concise voice.

Any hard-core graphics programmer will appreciate the value of the examples presented here, as well as the discussion of theory. After all, there's no need to waste time experimenting with code once the theory is known. Geometric Tools represents the best of both worlds: discussion of theory and code examples built on and culled from years of experience. --Mike Caputo

Review

"An hour of a programmer's time often costs more than the price of a book. By this measure, you hold a volume potentially worth thousands of dollars. That it can be purchased for a fraction of this cost I consider a modern miracle. The amount of information crammed into this book is incredible." --Eric Haines -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1056 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (October 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558605940
• ISBN-13: 978-1558605947
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #262,716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars warning: first edition, July 7, 2003

By	David Minogue (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

First of all, I commend the authors on a timely and valuable book. However, a word of caution: this book is full of errors. Every couple of pages I am noting in the margin: did they mean A instead of B? Having encountered so many errors, I am reading every formula with scepticism. The errors are serious enough that I have trouble recommending the book without reservations, but I know of no suitable alternative. I can only hope that the errors will be weeded out of future editions.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent information, marginal execution, August 17, 2005

By	bRz (Salt Lake City, UT United States) - See all my reviews

First, the good:
-Once you learn everything in this book, you'll should be ~well~ prepared to start implementing a powerful 3D engine.
-The three-chapter introduction to linear algebra is, quite frankly, one of the most intuitive I've ever read. Mind you, I wouldn't suggest that anyone studying linear algebra go out of their way to buy this book (since those three chapters are a small fraction of the book). However, anyone getting their first taste of linear algebra from this book should consider themselves fortunate to have such a lucid, concrete introduction to the subject. (Granted, you'll need some 'mathematical maturity' to understand it, but it should be easier to grasp than your average linear algebra text.)

And then, the bad:
-Errors galore. Fortunately, you can get a list of corrections from the book's web site, though if you print it out you may be a bit put off by the fact that it's some 25 pages. (To be fair, however, it has all corrections listed chronologically in order they were identified, then listed again by page number, so there's really only about 12 pages of corrections.) If you happen to have the second edition of this book, then you'll only have about 5 pages of corrections.
-Some of those corrections pretty much just scrap an explanation from the book and start over....which is fine, aside from having to read things like "Cross(Dot(u,v) * w))" which isn't particularly intuitive, and the fact that some of these new explanations seem to need corrections of their own (like those that appear to confuse w-parallel with w-perp, and so on).
-It seems a bit arrogant of the authors to make the occasional appeal to things that the "astute reader" may have noticed. Such appeals seem like a subtle insult to the "less than astute reader," which, in any public forum, will only serve to alienate.


All in all, if you're willing to put up with errors and have your "astuteness" challenged, you can learn tremendous things from this book.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible amount of material in a single book, November 17, 2002

By	Eric Haines (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book provides a solid grounding in vectors and matrices, then covers a wide range of 2D and 3D geometric algorithms, such as object/object distance and intersection, boolean operations, BSP trees, convex hulls, and more. It is a comprehensive guide, giving relevant theory, methods, and working code fragments. It's an incredible value for the amount of material it covers. I think it is a must-have for computer graphics professionals (and others in related fields). In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote the Foreword to this book, which I did because I was pleased with how good it is.

Visit Dave Eberly's "Magic Software" site for more about the book's contents.