Good introductory books on 3D programming?

pilou

thomthom

This one?

From that link I followed a link to this book: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark-Berg/dp/3540779736/ref=pd_sim_b_2
Used the Look Inside feature - looks interesting.

remus

This looks good: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Algorithms-3D-Computer-Graphics/dp/1568811543/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258559017&sr=8-4 although it might be overkill.

thomthom

Came across this link today. http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/11/computer_graphics_from_a_long_long_time_ago_in_a_g.php
Interseting to see how it was one over 30 years ago.

pilou

...

remus

Makes you appreciate just how far computing has come in such a short time.

Pixero

I'd recommend "Complete Maya Programming 2".
Not just for Maya, every chapter shows programming examples both in C++ and in Mel script. Lots of good explanations.
Click "Look inside" to see table of content:
http://www.amazon.com/reader/0120884828?encoding=UTF8&ref=sib%5Fdp%5Fbod%5Ftoc&page=8#reader_0120884828

thomthom

@pixero said:

I'd recommend "Complete Maya Programming 2".
Not just for Maya, every chapter shows programming examples both in C++ and in Mel script. Lots of good explanations.
Click "Look inside" to see table of content:
http://www.amazon.com/reader/0120884828?encoding=UTF8&ref=sib%5Fdp%5Fbod%5Ftoc&page=8#reader_0120884828

What kind of skills does it assume in beforehand of reading it?

Pixero

Well, I dont have any programming training and I had much use of it to understand matrices back when I wrote MentalRay shaders.
Obviously some of it has a connection to Maya but there are lots of explanations for generic 3d stuff.
Try pressing the "surprise me" button for some random looks inside.

pilou

I have forgotten this one
A best old French book illustraded (1984) but for this one alas not yet translated!
and free to download! (PDF)
Jean-Pierre Petit : a very original guy! A CG pionneer! (in English
It was for "Basic language" and for Computer Graphic!
A true gem! All the 3D bases and formula inside

PS All his other scientific books are translated, and free to donwload in many languages!
Maybe some one can interest you
Scroll the page!

thomthom

I think I have to get a few of these books. Computational geometry: algorithms and applications let me calculate a 2D convex hull. (I had no idea what it was before.)

Computational Geometry

Computational geometry emerged from the ?eld of algorithms design and analysis in the late 1970s. It has grown into a recognized discipline with its own journals, conferences, and a large community of active researchers. The success of the ?eld as a research discipline can on the one hand be explained from the beauty of the problems studied and the solutions obtained, and, on the other hand, by the many application domains—computer graphics, geographic information systems (GIS), robotics, and others—in which geometric algorithms play a fundamental role. For many geometric problems the early algorithmic solutions were either slow or dif?cult to understand and implement. In recent years a number of new algorithmic techniques have been developed that improved and simpli?ed many of the previous approaches. In this textbook we have tried to make these modern algorithmic solutions accessible to a large audience. The book has been written as a textbook for a course in computational geometry, but it can also be used for self-study.

Google Books (books.google.no)