Rating: 
Summary: Good, but with annoying bugs
Review: A good introduction to the subject. Get's some nice demo stuff up and running quickly.However, not all the examples are particularly good or well covered in the text. Some annoying bugs/typos in the code also noticed, with stuff off the CD not running the way it should have. Quite a few basic functions are not referenced in the index. Some function definitions are just plain wrong (worked out through trial and error!). Needs some more 'blue sky' stuff on the CD to show what OpenGl is really capable off, rather than just what's presented in the text. The difference in two author's styles is also a bit grating. I haven't looked in detail at the other OpenGL reference books, but get the feeling you'll probably move onto these once you're finished with this book. Mostly though well worth the effort and money, but needs better editing.
Rating: 
Summary: Far from being a Bible, but still a good book
Review: A very good introduction for the opengl newbie who doesn't want to mess up with 3D theory and math right from the start. The price to pay is some of the explanations end up being rather superficial. I like the practically oriented attitude of the book and the wealth of examples, from basics to more complex. Do not expect this to be a book that will transform you from a complete openGL newbie to a master... but it a very good introduction for somone who needs to make sense of openGL and see it at work. It uses GLUT as a library to interface with OS specific command like showing windows or getting keyboard input to shield you from having to deal with the dreaded windows API or any other OS dependent functions. If this is a good or bad thing , you decide. You will have to "treasure" the CD coming with the book as you will have no chance to download the source code form the web. I find this EXTREMELY annoying! The third edition is coming out so watch out for it!
Rating: 
Summary: Readable Book
Review: After struggling to try and understand OpenGL and computer graphics with numerous books, i found this book. The basics of OpenGL and Computer Graphics are thoroughly covered and the book can be used as a self tutorial.
Much of the mathematic theory behind OpenGL is not covered but that is part of why the book is readable. The example programs are fun and interesting and provide a jumping off point for your own experimentation. The only negative to this book is several chapters are Windows specific which are not very useful for those on UNIX or other platforms. Despite this i give the book 5 stars because the authors seem to care if you understand what they are talking about.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Mistakes
Review: Although this book gives a semi-thorough tutorial in OpenGL, and readers may learn something from looking at the examples, the author needs to learn some things himself. First of all, after stating that "Calculating the frames per second... is about as simple as math gets for 3D graphics," he defines fps as "Time in seconds / number of frames," which would be seconds per frame, not frames per second. Second of all, when writing a book on graphics, the illustrations used in the book should at least be geometrically correct. Yet the illustrations in this book do not even attempt to make lines that should be parallel look that way. Finally, the author describes transformation matrices used to translate an object's coordinates as a matrix that is multiplied by the object's coordinates instead of added to them. I do not recommend anyone buys this book, unless they already have a strong background in linear algebra and can realize when the author is completely wrong in his desciptions of OpenGL.
Rating:
Summary: A Needed OPENGL dev guide
Review: Being new to opengl I have found this book a great help. It covers all areas of opengl with great examples. The cover CD has lots of utils and code to copy and play with. This is a needed book for anyone looking to get into Opengl development.
Rating:
Summary: Great Foundation
Review: For the beginner and even intermediate person who wants to fill in whatever s/he forgot from other books or classes, this book is perfect. The chapters are wonderfully preempted with what the reader will learn in each chapter, but also the EXACT OpenGL calls that will be stressed along side each newly learned topic. The example code and utilities on the CD version of the book are wonderfully laid out and even the most novice programmer can follow along with them. The walkthrough style of the book is perfectly paced, so that as the topics advance (as does the reader's knowledge) the lessons become quicker and less nitty-gritty detailed, i.e. focusing on the main topic at hand. A MUST HAVE FOR ANYONE!
Rating:
Summary: Good addition to OpenGL Prog Guide
Review: Having learned OpenGL about 5 years ago by using the OpenGL Prog Guide (and ref guide) you may be interested to know that this book provides useful explanations of topics that the Prog Guide doesn't explain very well (if you've read it enough, you KNOW which sections I mean...). I found this book a good addition to the prog guide. Personally, I wouldn't start with this book, rather, get it when you need additional information/explanations. However, others may find it fine for a beginners book.
Rating:
Summary: Needs a broader range of examples
Review: I found this book went into the great detail explaining how the examples they give work, but there's so much more to OpenGL than the examples they give. I found myself asking "Wow! That's a great example of that function working in that example, but how do I get that function to do what I want it to do?" I was left with no clue. I suppose I could infer it painstakingly through studying the contexts of the sample code, but I thought the book was supposed to just teach me. I don't have that much time! I eventually started skimming over entire chapters that lost me in a barage of techno-geek jargon and explainations of advanced math, etc. I'll have to go back and read those again. This is the trouble with learning from books. The author has no idea if you actually understood his explaination of one thing before he moves on to another. It makes sense to him, so he goes on to the next part. On the plus side, I found the basics were covered quiet well. The authors got you going on your first OpenGL baby-steps within a few chapters. That was actually fun. But then they lost me in assuming I knew things they hadn't adequetly discussed.
Rating:
Summary: Needs a broader range of examples
Review: I found this book went into the great detail explaining how the examples they give work, but there's so much more to OpenGL than the examples they give. I found myself asking "Wow! That's a great example of that function working in that example, but how do I get that function to do what I want it to do?" I was left with no clue. I suppose I could infer it painstakingly through studying the contexts of the sample code, but I thought the book was supposed to just teach me. I don't have that much time! I eventually started skimming over entire chapters that lost me in a barage of techno-geek jargon and explainations of advanced math, etc. I'll have to go back and read those again. This is the trouble with learning from books. The author has no idea if you actually understood his explaination of one thing before he moves on to another. It makes sense to him, so he goes on to the next part. On the plus side, I found the basics were covered quiet well. The authors got you going on your first OpenGL baby-steps within a few chapters. That was actually fun. But then they lost me in assuming I knew things they hadn't adequetly discussed.
Rating:
Summary: Best book to learn OpenGL
Review: I have purchase several books on OpenGL. Comparing to all of them, I have to say this is the best books to learn OpenGL. The explaination is simple and to the point. The book only provide the essential information that you need to know, without all the unnecessary details. Compare to the red books, this books explains much better and clearer. The red books does provide some extra information, but the info itself is not very useful if you don't already know the basic of OpenGL. If your goal is to learn OpenGL, I would recommend that you buy this books first. If you want to learn more, then buy the other books.
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