Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C

This book will acquaint you with nearly every graphic technique and algorithm. It's THE book to have if you expect to be involved in more than a narrow range of graphics programming. If your ambition is limited to writing a Quake-like engine, you'll find yourself mouthing silliness like "it covers too many topics, many of which are trivial and unimportant such as the coverage of 2D graphics." This book does not hold your hand; the algorithms are explained thoroughly but you are expected to write your own code. If you're looking for off-the-shelf solutions or a way to cheat on your homework, this isn't your book.I've owned this book for nearly ten years and have turned to it time and again when taking on new tasks related to graphics - color space conversions, lighting algorithms in 3D, dithering, 2D primitive rendering for print graphics, and many more... it's the best value I've ever gotten in a computer-related book.

For someone new to the field of computer graphics, I was looking for a book that would provide me with a solid from-the-ground up discussion. This book meets and exceeds my expectations. The book is well structured and more than thorough enough for a newbie like myself. I like that the author explains not only how to do everything, but describes the various advantages and disadvantages of every technique, usually offering several different techniques to achieve the same result. I plan to read this book cover to cover and then again, there is so much good info.

Most people don't think of technical computer books as potential "classics", but this is one. I would not recommend this to beginners, but if you already know computer graphics, you should have this book. If you can, take a class where the instructor is using this book to teach. You will not regret it. Since it is, in essence, a teaching book, you will NOT find compelte solutions to graphics problems. The authors leave it up to the reader to implement everything in C, and to complete the algorithms. As a basic example, you will not find a complete integer line drawing algorithm in this book. The reader is only given a formula on how to draw lines from point A to a point B East-North-East of point A. You have to figure out how to do the rest. That is why this book is NOT for the beginner, unless you have an experienced teacher guiding you through it.

Let me reiterate what a few others have said:"This book is for thinking and researching.""This is not a book that you can read while sipping a glass of wine...""the bible of computer graphics" This is not a book that you will end up copying source code out of(a good thing). This book was my first step into the hardcore graphics world, and it was great. I don't think that more source code would enhance this book at all, mabye even the opposite. Source code is not what this book is about. If you are planning on implementing some of these algorithms, you must know how to code well, period. This is not a "here's how to code in C" manual, it's a "these are the principles of Computer Graphics." It's everything it claims to be. I particurally like the excercises at the end of every chapter. Although I don't do them all, it gives me a guide to practice what I learned. The math in this book is not as hard as some make it out to be. It is Matrix/Vector algrebra and some calc. A glossary would have been a nice touch, as some of the vocabulary can be overwhelming at times, especially the acronyms."Recommended for the hardcore programming freaks." Hope the authors (I'm going to give credit to more than Foley) plan to write again.

I don't know why people seem to think they can just pick up a graphics book on theory and grasp concepts without having to wade through mathematical formulas. Computer graphics IS like nuclear physics, it is not a walk through the park. This book, entitled "The Computer Graphics Bible" is your park guide. It has a comprehensive overview of most concepts, and tons of references to more info on those subjects. There isn't much code, but that's a good thing, because the only wy you can learn this stuff is by implementation, and that's how it should be done, not by copying code from a book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.