Open Geometry: Opengl(r) + Advanced Geometry [With *]

An extraordinarily valuable book for any one wanting to create Open-GL scenes. Unlike many Open-GL books that stop after presenting the basic Openg-GL figures, Open Geometry provides numerous complete source code examples of complex and interesting shapes.Want to display the horns of the greater kudu, Moebius strip, Klein bottle, complex mechanical motion? Then this book is for you.Of the nine Open-GL books I own, this is by far the most useful.

This book is for people who need to learn about advanced geometry, and are not scared to look at some code in the process (not all is explained in detail in the book). The book describes data structures and methods used in the code (which you receive on the accompanying CDROM) to create and manipulate complex geometrical objects. This book is not about OpenGL programming, though the code uses it to display the results.WARNING: The authors started programming the library in PASCAL. They used the p2c translator to create the C code for some 'older' parts of the code. Also the older parts are written in GERMAN. This is what I find the only flaw in this book, because it makes it harder to read it in some cases.I'm looking forward to version 2.0 of this book which is probably released somewhere in spring 2001.

I used this book as a textbook to teach a graduate course in "Geometry and Computer Graphics" at San Jose State University. The course was a success, and the book was crucial to that success.The book describes, and gives examples of the use of, the Open Geometry programming system, developed by the authors. You get a copy of this system on a CD-ROM with the book. Indeed, perhaps I should say that you get a copy of the book with this CD-ROM. Open Geometry is a collection of C++ classes making it easy to program advanced three-dimensional graphics. For example, one of the sample programs is called "The Blue Planet and its Only Moon", and shows two colored and beautifully shaded spheres, with one in animated motion around the other. The shading changes as the moon orbits. The program to produce this fits on one small screen, and begins with variable declarations like "Sphere Earth;". The architecture of Open Geometry is based on C++ classes that correspond to geometrical objects. Thus, there are classes for points, vectors, lines, planes, polygons, circles, spheres, parametric surfaces, polyhedra, etc. The actual rendering of these objects is accomplished by OpenGL, a cross-platform graphics library that is implemented on both UNIX and Windows, as well as the Silicon Graphics machines where it originated. We used the Windows version of Open Geometry, which comes with a nice Windows interface. It is distributed as source code, so you get a project to open in Microsoft Visual C++. You can add your own source code to that project (or a copy of it). For most of the class programming projects, a knowledge of Windows programming was optional. The book (and CD-ROM) contains a large number of interesting example programs illustrating the features of Open Geometry, including various kinds of parametrized surfaces and examples from kinematics. We had no serious difficulties in using the system to write programs in a number of different areas of geometry: minimal surfaces, cartography (did you know there are hundreds of different known projections of the sphere to a plane used for maps?) and regular polyhedra, to mention a few. The final assignment of the semester, which the students accomplished in two weeks, was to program a three-dimensional, manipulable Rubik's cube. By means of toolbar buttons, the cube can be manipulated as you could a real one; but you can also input instructions for a compound sequence of operations on the cube. I recommend this book to anyone who knows C++ and wants to learn about 3d graphics programming.

Finally I can transpose my geometrical ideas directly without having to think about the rest. The output quality is really perfect. A book for all who need geometrical figures for whatever purpose.

There is a lot of math in this book, so be prepared. But you will find insight into areas of graphics that are really very difficult to find elsewhere. Note: For the intermediate to advanced programmer only!