Rating: 
Summary: Up-to-date survey-style book
Review: This book replaces the "old school" stand-by Foley-Van Damn as the "bible" of computer graphics. It is a survey of computer graphics principles, focusing on real-time rendering, as indicated by the title.Each subject is touched on in just enough detail to give the reasonably educated reader an understanding of the most important concepts, although sometimes tricky implementation details are left out. The style is academic and authoritative. Some of the highlights of this book are: - an excellent overview of the graphics pipeline
- general optimization techniques based on maximizing usage of all the processor(s) involved in rendering
- an excellent discussion of the standard lighting equation
- survey of special effects "tricks"
- many geometric tests such as intesection and culling
- large list of references This book is not for beginners. A firm understanding of linear algebra, and a prior understanding of elementary graphics concepts such as triangle meshes and texture mapping, are both highly recommended before reading this book. Definately one to have on the shelf. Currently, the best survey of graphics techniques available.
Rating:
Summary: Up-to-date survey-style book
Review: This book replaces the "old school" stand-by Foley-Van Damn as the "bible" of computer graphics. It is a survey of computer graphics principles, focusing on real-time rendering, as indicated by the title. Each subject is touched on in just enough detail to give the reasonably educated reader an understanding of the most important concepts, although sometimes tricky implementation details are left out. The style is academic and authoritative. Some of the highlights of this book are: - an excellent overview of the graphics pipeline
- general optimization techniques based on maximizing usage of all the processor(s) involved in rendering
- an excellent discussion of the standard lighting equation
- survey of special effects "tricks"
- many geometric tests such as intesection and culling
- large list of references This book is not for beginners. A firm understanding of linear algebra, and a prior understanding of elementary graphics concepts such as triangle meshes and texture mapping, are both highly recommended before reading this book. Definately one to have on the shelf. Currently, the best survey of graphics techniques available.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book - You don't need a PhD in Math to read it.
Review: This book rocks. I am new to writing graphics code and have been stumbling over rotation of matrices, Quaternions, and in general the math and symbols used. This book reviews the math and defines all the symbols used in great detail. It also gives wonderful textual and graphical examples throughout the book. This is a great book for a new graphics programmer or someone just interested in the hows not sure if it would be helpful to advanced developers.
Rating:
Summary: A classic is born!
Review: This is a GREAT book on modern graphics algorithms and explanations on how 3D graphics hardware works. It has it all - the math, the algorithms, the tricks, and the references to dig further. The reference/bibliography section contains a stunning 392 references!!! It is well written and easy to understand (without being trivial). This book, next to (or even instead of) Foley/van Dam's "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice" book, is a must for anyone with a serious interest in this field!
Rating:
Summary: Best book of its kind
Review: This is a great book. It is clearly written, in plain language. Although it does provide formulas here and there, it doesn't degenerate into "math-speak." It is written as a guide to developers, rather than as a textbook, so final solutions to problems are given, rather than left as an exercise to the reader. The book has a clear focus and doesn't include any fluff (e.g., Foley/vanDamm waste 3 or so chapters talking about how to write a friendly UI for a paint program). Many references to other books and papers are included, so you know where to look if you want more information. And the book's online site is filled with similar links.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is a great book. It features in depth coverage of all areas of graphics programming of interest to game programmers,
Rating: 
Summary: Great introductory book!
Review: This is actually a good book, though it does not provide a "step by step" introduction, but more of a coarse overview of various topics. There's a small revision of mathematical basics, but I recommend you buy a complimentary book like Roger's "Mathematical Elements for Computer Graphics" to fill the gap if you're not mathematically liberate.
Actually one of the key features is the large bibliography with references to tons of books, papers and websites.
I recommend this book to everyone new to the topic, as it really helps to get a foot in the door and provides a great overview of various 3D-related topics, plus many links to further resources. Though it lacks the necessary details to directly turn everything into code, it shows you which techniques are available and where to learn about them.
Definetely recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for the beginner as well as the professional
Review: This is the book you all have been waiting for. It explains all concepts of 3D Graphics on modern hardware, including algorithms and everything needed to perform the computations. It ommits code, but it is so well explained that that does not make a difference. The only thing it misses out are some details about LOD algorithms but that is made up in the bibliography. The book is understandable for even the beginner with only little knowledge of computer graphics, and has some interesting things for the professional too. If you want to buy one book about 3D Graphics for games/multimedia buy this one, it will give you all you need. Buy it in conjunction with a book about OpenGL or Direct3D and you are ready to go to write your own top notch 3D Engine.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent !!
Review: Well, i have to be honest : i haven't read the book yet. But there are three example chapters on the authors website and i must say : EXCELLENT !! When you need an in-depth introduction to common real-time rendering techniques and effects, this is it !! I was able to produce working programs after 2, 3 hours, all with blazing speed. It isn't a book on API's, it isn't a book about long, in-depth mathematical proofs, it's the perfect book for getting things done ! IMO: this would be good next to the Foley and Van Dam at my bookshelf ...
Rating:
Summary: A "How-To" of graphics texts
Review: When I bought this book on a coworker's reccomendation, I was initially disappointed that it lacked the mathematical sophistication of Foley/Van Dam or of Glassner's books. Upon further reading I realized that this same "lack of deep mathematical insight" was also the book's strong point. "Real-Time Rendering" is a very clear, very readable "how-to" book. If you're looking for deep insight into graphics research problems I'd reccomend one of the two other books mentioned above ("Computer Graphics" by Foley and Van Dam or "Principles of Digital Image Synthesis" by Glassner), but if you want a straightforward plain-English explanation of some real-time graphics topic, this book is probably your best bet.
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