Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, Third Edition

Whether for purposes of business, gaming, seeking to develop an outstanding web site for any other purpose, computer graphics are a key factor in the highly competitive world of the internet. The collaborative work of Peter Shirley (Senior Research Scientist at NVIDIA - a world leader in visual computer technologies and the inventor of the GPU) and Steve Marschner (Associate professor of Computer Science, Cornell University), and an impressive roster of experts in the field, this newly updated and expanded third edition of "Fundamentals Of Computer Graphics" continues to be an outstanding and comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of computer graphic technology. Of special note are the new chapters on implicit modeling, computer graphics, color, and information visualization. Superbly organized and thoroughly 'user friendly, this new edition "Fundamentals Of Computer Graphics" is an ideal textbook and highly recommended for computer course curriculums, as well as a personal and professional reference.

This book covers many different areas of computer graphics , and it's great starting point for it's exploring.

Though this text provides the reader with a thorough treatment of the basic and advanced topics of today's graphics algorithms and techniques, some errors pop up here and there which might be problematic when trying to program according to the book, or trying out the execution of an algorithm. An errata page has been provided by the writer which might be useful to readers of this text; it can be found at http://www.cs.utah.edu/~shirley/fcg/errata I hope this helps some people out. I, for one, started sweating when it seemed like I did not understand BSP trees anymore; it took me a couple of minutes to see that a couple of lines were inverted in the accompanying code. However, this book is interesting, fun to read, and useful. I recommend it to anyone who already has a basic understanding of Computer-Graphics-Without-An-API.

This is an AI-neutral book and has an especially excellent discussion of the graphics pipeline in general, and transforms and triangle scan conversion in particular. It also has a good treatment of BSP trees and ray tracing. My only complaint is that it talks little about animation. My favorite thing about it is that it uses very clean math, and none of it is gratuitous.

This is a really good intro to the fundamentals of 3D graphics. The best thing about this book is that it is API-neutral, and so covers the material wihtout making specific references to API's. The material is explained very clearly and is easy to read. I would have liked some more guidance on actual implementation in code (e.g. using C to make it accessible to most readers, or using pseudo-code). Perhaps some canned demo programs would have been nice, to supplement the narrative.I also bought Hill's book on 3D graphics with OpenGL(2nd Edition), and find the two books work quite well together.I recommend Shirley's book as a first introduction to graphics theory >before< you start playing with an API!