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The Geometry Toolbox for Graphics and Modeling
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Author: Gerald E. Farin, Dianne Hansford
List Price: $49.00
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1568810741
Publisher: AK Peters Ltd (June, 1998)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 175,459
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 4 out of 5
Unique approach of many topics, but not much 3D
For many topics, this book provides more thorough coverage for beginners than other books, and is a good resource for building up your intuition about vectors and matrices. Especially good is his discussion of matrices and operations on matrices such as gaussian elimination.A few minor things I didn't like: 1. The whole book has a slightly "mathematical" slant, as opposed to a "geometric" slant. In other words, contrary to the title, this book is actually more about linear algebra (pure mathematics) than about geometry. For example, solving systems of equations, gaussian elimination, and the like, really don't have anything to do with geometry. Likewise, the notation is more "mathematical" than "geometric" - using e1, e2, and e3 for the basis vectors rather than x, y, and z like everybody else. 2. The book covers many topics very well in 2D - the problem is that it doesn't cover much in 3D. Some topics, of course, extend naturally from 2D into 3D and so detailed discussion isn't necessary. Other's topics dont. For example, orientation in 3D, left-handed vs. right-handed coordinate spaces, perspective projection and homegenous coordinates, quaternions. Coverage of these topics would have added a lot. 3. Other people seem to like the diagrams, but I didn't think they were that good. I think a better way to describe the diagrams is that the book has *more* diagrams than most other books, but not necessarily better ones. I personally don't like hand-drawn illustrations. And 3D diagrams needs to be rendering using shading and perspective foreshortening - schemtic-style isometric diagrams are difficult to interpret. Another example, all of the elementary geometric transformations were discussed by showing the effect of the transformation on an object. This is wonderful - most books don't do this! The only problem is that the object he choses to use is a confusing-looking circle thingy. Using a very simple object, such as a teapot would have been much better. All-in-all, this book has some unique coverage and I would recommend it, especially for the discussion of matrices and transformations, and nested coordiante spaces. The books tends to spend time on more "purely mathematical" subject matter, which is not a bad thing, just a warning. The information on 3D topics is conspicuously lean, which is somewhat of a negative. However, I was pleased with my purchase and was able to look at several things from a different perspective.
Rating: 5 out of 5
been looking for this
good focused coverage
Rating: 5 out of 5
Best math book for graphics programmers I've found
I've read quite a few math texts looking for an understanding of the math necessary for 3D graphics software. This was the first one that I was able to read straight through, like a novel. I highly recommend it for an understanding of 3D math. It has clear descriptions that build gradually.
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