OpenGL(R) Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 896 pages
• Published by: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Edition: 5th Edition August 11, 2005
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0321335732
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0321335739
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 1.8 inches
• Weighs: 2.8 pounds

Reader Reviews
For those graphic programmers who think that Java3D requires that you program at too high a level and want more elementary control over their graphics operations, OpenGL is probably a good choice for a graphics programming API. So, assuming you already have a good grasp of computer graphics programming concepts and can already program in the C language, this guide is probably your best bet. If you don't already know these things, you will be completely lost trying to read this book. The book starts out in chapter one showing the reader exactly what OpenGL can and cannot do. Supporting code and instructive figures are supplied. The next few chapters deal with performing basic graphics tasks by using the OpenGL API. Topics included are viewing, display lists, color, lighting, blending, antialiasing, and fog. Again, if you are not already familiar with how to write pseudocode for these type of graphics tasks, you need to find a good basic computer graphics text and learn the techniques first. The next part of the book moves on to slightly more advanced topics such as texture mapping, tessellators, quadrics, and NURBs all from the standpoint of "How do I do this in OpenGL?". The chapter entitled "Now That You Know" is especially valuable to the experienced graphics programmer. Unlike previous chapters, this chapter presents a collection of examples of higher-level graphics capabilities and some incomplete OpenGL code for those examples. The reader is expected to flesh out the code to get a running graphics program, and the book does point this fact out. Chapter 15, "OpenGL twenty and the OpenGL Shading Language", is the only truly new material in this 5th edition of the OpenGL programming guide. Thus, if you are not interested in using the OpenGL shader, you can probably forge ahead with the 4th edition of the guide if you already have a copy. For those readers who want to learn OpenGL but have not yet learned computer graphics techniques, I highly recommend "Computer Graphics Using Open GL" (2nd Edition) by Francis Hill. That book has all of the basic graphics techniques explained using OpenGL code. However, note that it is a computer graphics textbook, NOT an OpenGL tutorial. Also, you might want to pick up a copy of Schaum's outline of computer graphics. It is an inexpensive guide to both 2D and 3D computer graphics techniques that is not specifically aimed at any particular language or API, and it has many excellent exercises that help you learn the material. Comment | | (Report this)