On computer graphics

Possibly the most comprehensive overview of computer graphics as seen in the context of geometric modeling, this two-volume work covers implementation and theory in a thorough and systematic fashion. It covers the computer graphics part of the field of geometric modeling and includes all the standard computer graphics topics. The CD-ROM features two companion programs.

With contributions by Michael Ashikhmin, Michael Gleicher, Naty Hoffman, Garrett Johnson, Tamara Munzner, Erik Reinhard, Kelvin Sung, William B. Thompson, Peter Willemsen, Brian Wyvill. The third edition of this widely adopted text gives students a comprehensive, fundamental introduction to computer graphics. The authors present the mathematical fo

In a very broad sense the historical development of computer graphics can be considered in three phases, each a giant step down the road towards "realistic" computer generated images. The first, during the late 1960's and early 1970's, can perhaps be characterized as the "wire frame" era. Basically pictures were composed of lines. Considerable em phasis was placed on "real time" interactive manipulation of the model. As models became more complex and as raster technology developed, eliminating the hidden lines or hidden surfaces from the image became critical for visual understanding. This requirement resulted in the second phase of computer graphics, the "hidden surface" era, that developed during the 1970's and early 1980's. The names associated with hidden surface algorithms read like a who's who of computer graphics. The cul mination of the hidden surface era and the beginning of the current and third era in computer graphics, the "rendering" era, was Turner Whitted's incorporation of a global illumination model into the ray trac ing algorithm. Now the goal was not just to generate an image, but to generate a realistic appearing image.

Image Synthesis: Theory and Practice is the first book completely dedicated to the numerous techniques of image synthesis. Both theoretical and practical aspects are treated in detail. Numerous impressive computer-generated images are used to explain the most advanced techniques in image synthesis. The book contains a detailed description of the most fundamental algorithms; other less important algorithms are summarized or simply listed. This volume is also a unique handbook of mathematical formulae for image synthesis. The four first chapters of the book survey the basic techniques of computer graphics which play an important role in the design of an image: geometric models, image and viewing transformations, curves and surfaces and solid modeling techniques. In the next chapters, each major topic in image synthesis is presented. The first important problem is the detection and processing of visible surfaces, then two chapters are dedicated to the central problem of light and illumination. As aliasing is a major problem in image rendering, the fundamental antialiasing and motion blur techniques are explained. The most common shadow algorithms are then presented as well as techniques for producing soft shadows and penumbrae. In the last few years, image rendering has been strongly influenced by ray tracing techniques. For this reason, two chapters are dedicated to this important approach. Then a chapter is completely dedicated to fractals from the formal Mandelbrot theory to the recursive subdivision approaches. Natural phenomena present a particularly difficult challenge in image synthesis. For this reason, a large portion of the book is devoted to latest methods to simulate these phenomena: particle systems, scalar fields, volume density scattering models. Various techniques are also described for representing terrains, mountains, water, waves, sky, clouds, fog, fire, trees, and grass. Several techniques for combining images are also explained: adaptive rendering, montage and composite methods. The last chapter presents in detail the MIRALab image synthesis software.

Drawing on an impressive roster of experts in the field, Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, Fourth Edition offers an ideal resource for computer course curricula as well as a user-friendly personal or professional reference. Focusing on geometric intuition, the book gives the necessary information for understanding how images get onto the screen by using the complementary approaches of ray tracing and rasterization. It covers topics common to an introductory course, such as sampling theory, texture mapping, spatial data structure, and splines. It also includes a number of contributed chapters from authors known for their expertise and clear way of explaining concepts. Highlights of the Fourth Edition Include: Updated coverage of existing topics Major updates and improvements to several chapters, including texture mapping, graphics hardware, signal processing, and data structures A text now printed entirely in four-color to enhance illustrative figures of concepts The fourth edition of Fundamentals of Computer Graphics continues to provide an outstanding and comprehensive introduction to basic computer graphic technology and theory. It retains an informal and intuitive style while improving precision, consistency, and completeness of material, allowing aspiring and experienced graphics programmers to better understand and apply foundational principles to the development of efficient code in creating film, game, or web designs. Key Features Provides a thorough treatment of basic and advanced topics in current graphics algorithms Explains core principles intuitively, with numerous examples and pseudo-code Gives updated coverage of the graphics pipeline, signal processing, texture mapping, graphics hardware, reflection models, and curves and surfaces Uses color images to give more illustrative power to concepts

The technological developments of the last ten years have made com puter graphics and image processing by computer popular. Pictorial pat tern recognition has also shown significant progress. Clearly, there exist overlapping interests among the three areas of research. Graphic displays are of concern to anyone involved in image processing or pic torial pattern recognition and many problems in graphics require methodologies from image processing for their solutions. The data structures used in all three areas are similar. It seems that there is a common body of knowledge underlying all three areas, pictorial informa tion processing by computer. The novelty of these fields makes it difficult to design a course or to a write a book covering their basic concepts. Some of the treatises on graphics focus on the hardware and methods of current interest while treatises on image processing often emphasize applications and classical signal processing. The fast evolution of technology causes such material to lose its relevance. For example, the development of optical fibers has reduced the importance of bandwidth compression.

Some of the best current research on realistic rendering is included in this volume. It emphasizes the current "hot topics” in this field: image based rendering, and efficient local and global-illumination calculations. In the first of these areas, there are several contributions on real-world model acquisition and display, on using image-based techniques for illumination and on efficient ways to parameterize and compress images or light fields, as well as on clever uses of texture and compositing hardware to achieve image warping and 3D surface textures. In global and local illumination, there are contributions on extending the techniques beyond diffuse reflections, to include specular and more general angle dependent reflection functions, on efficiently representing and approximating these reflection functions, on representing light sources and on approximating visibility and shadows. Finally, there are two contributions on how to use knowledge about human perception to concentrate the work of accurate rendering only where it will be noticed, and a survey of computer graphics techniques used in the production of a feature length computer-animated film with full 3D characters.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery, DGCI'96, held in Lyon, France, in November 1996. Computer imaging essentially depends on discrete models for coding, processing, recognition, representation, etc. The volume presents 24 revised full papers selected from 41 submissions together with 3 invited contributions and a tutorial paper, which bridges the gap between theory and practice. The issues addressed are topology, geometry, shape representation, 3D surfaces and volumes, models for discrete space, image transformation and generation.