No comments about Engineering and Computer Graphics Workbook Using SolidWorks 2006.

5 comments about Exploring 3D Animation with Maya 6 (Design Exploration).

1. Almost all the chapter files on the cd would open with errors, so they were practically useless. And for Ch.7 it says there are reference pictures on the cd for the throwing exercise, but there are no pictures. Also, there's a bunch of little typo's, but that's forgivable. This book is really easy and fast to read, I consider myself a beginner, but I guess I was a little more advanced than what this book had to offer. Overall, this is a decent book, but it isn't as great as everyone has been saying....



2. This book is good if you already know how things work in Maya.
   
   If you are a beginner you will feel like someone dumped an 18-wheeler truck on you. The descriptions of tools and how things work are barely explained and then you are given exercises to do using those tools. The exercises say to start with a shape as shown in the picture and then "tweak" the shape until it looks like the other picture shown. I don't see how that can be called instructional. Unfortunately, how to get from one to the other is a complete mystery. I unsuccessfully spent several hours just trying to get anything accomplished with this book. I don't feel like I learned anything. The book seems to be written for those who know Maya's basics and want to get on with building. If you are new to Maya, AVOID this book. I am good at learning new programs generally speaking, but this book makes it hard and not fun.



3. This book is terrific for learning to animate. I was happy with the traditional technique that was explained alongside the Maya. I did not run into the problems the other reviewers wrote - my book was fine and the tutorials were easy.
   
   It was cool to work with this book because it focused just on animation. I bought a $50 book called animation, and it was all about modeling and rigging. I appreciate that this book was written by Disney guys, and kept me focused on movement.



4. This is the one book out there with animation in the title that actually does animation.
   
   I appreciate the study of movement presented in this book. It isn't rehashed from other books - it is fresh and makes a lot of sense. The wave theory is great - and is easy to do in 3d.
   
   This book talks about the graph editor in huge detail. I got a lot out of it - especially since no other book does this.



5. This is the best training book by far for Maya character animators. Even though the program is now dated, the theories and exercises are excellent and Phil Young's illustrations are very clear and concise. Young is a traditionally trained artist/animator so he knows what he is talking about, and he translates 2D physics to Maya very well.
   The book is concise and well written and the illustrations are plentiful and simple to understand. The best feature of this book is that the enclosed CD contains the generic animation figure "Generii" created by Andrew Silke. Generii is used for the exercises instead of the usual 'realistic' (and often extremely poorly designed)character. The well-planned exercises and explanations work for any CGI program, so it is too bad that the title is going to date the book badly--look past the title and get this book if you are interested in learning character animation in CGI.

2 comments about Non-Photorealistic Computer Graphics: Modeling, Rendering and Animation (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics).

1. I read this book when it came out and was quite happy with it. It's a very good review of the NPR field, that will allow a professional developer to implement most of the algorithms readily... otherwise all of the important academic papers are also well referenced. Well-written and accessible. A good addition to your library if you want to go farther than photorealism.



2. As a hobby, I have spent several years rewriting the visual effects found in Photoshop in the Java programming language, and adding some that were not present in that package. This is one of the books that I used to duplicate the effects I wanted. The book is full of all kinds of good information that you can use to produce various visual effects. I'm not talking about simple mathematical transforms or pixel-in/pixel-out effects. This book is about producing an image that looks like a sketch or type of painting.
   
   Chapter two, on pixel manipulation of images, gives an excellent explanation of dithering and halftoning methods. All of the details are presented in pseudocode. From chapter three forward, matters are not so simple. Chapters three through five still deal with image transforms in two dimensions, but now the emphasis is on simulating brush strokes, curves, and drawing lines for images that mimic hand-drawn sketches and paintings.
   
   Starting in chapter six, three-dimensional techniques are explored. Chapter six deals with the encoding of 3D information in 2D data structures. Chapter seven is about dealing with geometric models as data types and using that geometric model information to add further detail to non-photorealistic versions of images. Chapter eight is largely a continuation of chapter seven, but there the subject is lighting models.
   
   Chapter nine turns to a different subject entirely - distortion. Two basic methods are examined: image-space distortion and object-space distortion. Image-space distortion is the simplest method, and object-space distortion is more complex since it takes into account the underlying geometric model of the image, subdividing the image into objects.
   
   Chapters ten and eleven really don't reveal anything new at the algorithm level. Chapter 10 discusses the applications of non-photorealistic rendering, and you may or may not be interested in it. However, chapter 11 presents a conceptual framework for binding the contents of the book together, and is rather an important chapter. It basically muses about the entirety of the book, assuming that the reader has been exposed to all of the ideas in it and comes up with a terminology that helps you describe the physics of the viewing process.
   
   I thought the authors did a good job of explaining NPR graphics and of building from basic concepts to quite complex ones in a gradual and systematic way. Since the topic is very difficult, it would be impossible to write an easy book on the subject. However, this one is quite complete on the topics it covers. I would recommend it to anybody interested in this subject.

No comments about Compute's First Book of Atari Graphics.

No comments about Exploring Analytical Geometry with Mathematica.

No comments about Applied Laplace Transforms and z-Transforms for Scientists and Engineers: A Computational Approach Using a Mathematica Package.

5 comments about Writing GNOME Applications.

1. A "must have" for starters, and a wonderful reference and guide (full of examples and code) for those already developing applications using GNOME!

   Intended audience for this book must be able to understand simple C code. Some UNIX tools and environment experience would be desirable in order to fully deploy the content of this book. Basic knowledge about GTK+ would also be a plus, but not a must.

   The most important feature of this book is that it covers GNOME 1.2. The next most important feature is the fact that subjects like Internationalization, GnomeMDI, Session Management and Documentation, have each one a hole chapter dedicated to its own. There is also a chapter on Graphics and another on The GNOME Canvas. This last one is worth John Sheets to deserve a hurray!, because the Canvas itself is not an easy issue to explain, and John does it wonderfully.

   The remaining chapters covers the "usual suspects": A General overview on UNIX / GTK+ / GNOME, an analysis on the GNOME Build Environment, and a detailed "dissection" on Gnome Applications, like Menus, Toolbars and Dialogs. This book is a buy that worths every buck spent on it!




2. This is a book aimed mainly at the uninitiated in the world of UNIX and X-Window programming. It is, however, necessary that the reader has the basic knowledge of C programming.

   In the beginning the book presents the reader with an overview of basic concepts of UNIX, X-Window system programming and the GLib and GTK+ libraries which are the foundations of GNOME libraries. For an in-depth understanding of these topics, further reading is necessary, but for the purposes of this book, they are covered well enough.

   The reader is then provided with a thorough description of the GNOME libraries, especially the UI framework and with special emphasis on more complicated sections like the GNOME canvas, MDI and session management, which have chapters dedicated solely to them. It also discusses a lot of graphics related stuff including latest additions to GNOME like the gdk-pixbuf library which replaces the deprecated imlib. Throughout the book all the important and hard-to-understand issues are very well illustrated with example source code.

   Yet another strong side of the book is the discussion of the GNU build system, which can be quite cryptic for the newcomers and migrants from the Windows world.

   One of its weak points is the rather spartan coverage of the help system and preparation of documentation which tend to be the weak sides of most applications and would therefore require a better description.

   To sum it up: an experienced UNIX programmer would perhaps rather use another, more reference-like book, but for a beginner that would like to get familiar with the world of GNOME programming as quickly and as painlessly as possible, this book is a must have!




3. This book has an easy reading style that supports the almost "hobby" or "fan club" interest of some of my undergraduate computer science students. The author, John Sheets, did what he set out to do: "My fervent hope is that this book will be useful to people as a learning tool, and as a reference guide. I've done my best to offer clear descriptions of how things work, while at the same time provide complete API listings and enough hands-on examples to give you a good intuitive feel for things."

   This book is informative, yet straightforward. It is ambitious, but there is enough detail to get somewhere without getting lost in deadly unstated details. The author is also open to interaction with readers in the amazing and delightful nature of people who actively pursue projects like this and change the world along the way. I expect that readers will value the attitude expressed by the author that this book needs to be treated as an ongoing, evolving software project. The book in its current form is very good. With the hopes and attitude expressed by the author, it is something that I will recommend to my students who are capable and interested in GNOME. Without meeting John Sheets personally, I added a 5th star to my rating because I liked his attitude and his style.




4. The author full fills his goal of giving an good introduction on how to write basic application for GNOME - going from makefiles over the GTK+ toolkit to the GNOME canvas as well as how to internationalize applications. This is an easy read, but personally I would like to have the code fragments placed closer to the text or on the opposite side, it has always irrated me when I have to move forward or backward to check out code which is referenced in the text.

   This is a very nice introduction, but I am missing information about Orbit and how to use the ORB in my application or be used from other application. If you are experience GUI (C/C++) programmers from the X11/Motif/KDE background this will be very easy reading (too).




5. Do NOT get this book! It's not worth your time. It's hard to describe how disappointed I was after reading this book. I'm not talking about the style with which the author presents his ideas (which is pretty good) but about the contents. GNOME stands for GNU Network Object Model Environment, which implies that CORBA is a big part of it. This book doesn't talk about ORBit, OAF or Bonobo at all (which are the libraries that implement CORBA environment in GNOME). I'm not sure how this book could even be named "Writing GNOME Applications". It doesn't talk about gconf, bonobo, gnorba, oaf, pango etc. All that, wouldn't be probably such a big problem because none of the books available today talks about those technologies. What made this book so unbearable in my eyes is the fact that author omits the concept of packing widgets!! You will NOT be able to write ANY useful application after reading this book. How can you write any graphical application with one widget? You can't. Oh, and author doesn't talk about creating widgets either. In conclusion, after reading this book you won't be able to write widgets, you won't be able to place more than one widget in your application, you won't be able to write any GNOME specific application, you won't be able to write a GTK+ application and you won't have a clue what the new and exciting technologies in GNOME are all about.

5 comments about Introduction to Probability with Mathematica (Studies in Advanced Mathematics).

1. The book seems to have good intentions.. but... most of the text uses Mathematica Code that is not available... the promised software on the publishers Website is apparently vaporware.. totally unavailable.. and of course the publishers are "not available"... Without software the book is an expensive waste of time...



2. I was one of the test users of this book at the college where Prof. Hastings teaches. With the use of Mathematica (which is assumed in this book), the book allows one to explore the ideas much more easily. By modifying built in commands, the user can get a better grasp on how specific distributions behave. The commands written for the book are also very helpful. I found the book easy to use and the problems ranged from basic to difficult, but most were intersting (particularly the chapter on simulation). For those with access to Mathematica, this book works seemlessly with the program, making Mathematica a simple to use tool to aid in the understanding of probability rather than get in the way.



3. I considered this book for a course that I thought I was going to teach. The course never got offered but I did discover this neat book in the process. Being a Mathematica fan, I was very happy to see a probability book completely based on Mathematica. In fact, the book itself is a set of Mathematica notebooks, making it very easy for the readers to experiment with the introduced topics. The explanations are clear and are accompanied with neat examples showing real-world uses of probability.

   There should be more books like this... Really.

   ........




4. I purchased this book in desperation while taking a probability class with another textbook, and it has been a lucky find, indeed. The mathematics are limited mostly to basic calculus but provide sufficient rigor to satisfy the interests of mathematically-minded readers. The concepts appeal intuitively to the non-statistician scientist or graduate student as well as the mathematician. This book is easy to read and understand. Mathematica enhances the text and aids the homework, but unlike the reviewer below, I believe this book is valuable even without Mathematica. After reading this book I was able to make sense of the assigned probability text and began to enjoy the course. Introduction to Probability with Mathematica was well worth the investment.



5. One reviewer said that the sample programs were not available as promised on the publishers website. That may have been true when that review was written, however, I just checked and the sample programs are now there for download on the publisher's website. In fact, I just downloaded them and they are fully functioning Mathematica notebooks.

No comments about Tricks & Tips for the Commodore 64.

No comments about The Graphics Book for the Commodore-64.