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3D Computer Graphics (3rd Edition)

Alan Watt · 2 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
This book provides students with a knowledge of complex and emerging topics in the field of Computer Graphics, including advances in rendering and new material on animation. It will enable the reader to master the fundamentals of 3D computer graphics as well as acting as a complete resource for anyone interested in 3D modelling. It provides detailed coverage of both realistic and non-realistic images. This is the third edition of a book which deals with the processes involved in converting a mathematical or geometric description of an object into a visualisation that simulates the appearance of a real object. Traditionally computer graphics has created pictures by starting with a very detailed geometric description, subjecting this to a series of transformations that orient a viewer and objects in 3D space, then imitating reality by making the objects look solid and real - a process known as rendering. Nowadays this is proving insufficient for the new demands of moving computer imagery and virtual reality. Much research is being carried out into how to model complex objects, where the nature and shape of the objects changes dynamically and into capturing the richness of the world without having to model every detail explicitly. This text explores and relates thee resulting in diverse synthesis and modelling methods.
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
Sigh, the canonical reference on 3D graphics "in software" has been the Foley and Van Dam tome "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C" [1], followed closely by "Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics" [2] by Newman and Sproul. Followed closely by the Graphics Gems series, and then Watt's eponymous "3D Computer Graphics" [3] and "Real Time Rendering" [4] by Moller and Haines.

All wonderful texts and can tell you everything you want to know about doing 3D graphics in software. They won't help at all (generally) for GPU based graphics sadly.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-Principles-Practice-...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Interactive-Computer-Graphi...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Graphics-3rd-Alan-Watt/dp/020...

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Rendering-Third-Tomas-Akenin...

_delirium
There's some good information in those books, but I don't think this one is redundant with them (admittedly, I've only skimmed it so far). Differences: 1) open-access; 2) interactive HTML5 demos of most of the concepts.
ChuckMcM
My opinion is that the killer project would be to combine them, which is to say put together interactive text/exercises around each concept so that you could read all the theory then see it in action.
nint22
Hey, I'm Jeremy - the author of the book in question. I'm happy to say I completely agree, and proudly own two of the book in question! My book's goal was to be a simple read with little overhead in allowing readers to start writing code and see results immediately. Though C is incredibly powerful (goes without saying), many students have a very hard time understanding that C is a language, not a library, and thus has a hard time "outputting" real-time interactive graphics. HTML5 / Canvas, on the other hand, are ready to go without any sort of installation!

Regardless, in my next update I'll be making this point explicitly clear to readers :-) I am not trying to become any sort of tome in the library of great computer-graphics books.

Any book on computer graphics would be a good start for the graphics side.

I like 3D Computer Graphics by Alan Watt as an introduction and overview http://www.amazon.co.uk/3D-Computer-Graphics-Alan-Watt/dp/02...

and Real-time Rendering for more advanced subjects http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-time-Rendering-Tomas-Akenine-Mo...

The session from Assembly 'The Basics of Demo Programming' is online and may also be useful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbcZyAO6K7c or have a look at The Demo Effects Collection http://demo-effects.sourceforge.net/

But it depends what platform you want to use C-64 An Introduction to Programming C-64 Demos http://www.antimon.org/code/Linus/ and http://codebase64.org/doku.php

Processing http://www.processing.org/

WebGL Browserscene: Creating demos on the Web http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZLqwXdXjqY

Deconstructing a browserscene demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjWOA-iPnA

I have some more bookmarks on pinboard http://pinboard.in/u:z303/t:demoscene/

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