jfh@cs.brown.edu (John Forbes Hughes) (01/19/90)
There's been some discussion about this, and I think that I can give the most authoritative answer, since I am one of the authors (Foley, van Dam, Feiner, and Hughes). First of all, don't believe all the rumors you hear. For example: Richard Kingslake says: >> Addison-Wesley in the UK have just released it and are sending examination >> copies to any academic who wants one. I have sent off my request form, but >> the book has not yet arrived. I await it eagerly - the contents list is >> impressive. >> Richard Kingslake AW in the UK must be very impressive, since the authors have seen no such thing. We are in the final stages of preparing the text, and the page proofs have now all been edited, much of the color laid out, the figures have been through several iterations with the art people, and things are generally progressing well. I sincerely hope that the book will be in your local bookstore by early May. A few universities are using photocopied versions of the text for courses this semester. Perhaps someone less biased than me will give a review at some point. Xanthain@saturn.ADS.COM provided a review of Alan Watt's "Fundamentals of 3D Computer Graphics," in the course of the discussion about F&vD, and I am pleased to report that the material cited appears in our book as well, perhaps in somewhat greater detail. Transformations, and 3D viewing are covered in two early chapters. A review of the relevant linear and affine geometry is also included in an appendix. Rendering a various hidden surface algorithms are discussed in glorius detail in Chapters 14, 15, and 16. Modeling is discussed first in terms of PHIGS models, in Chapter 7, and later in terms of more advanced modeling techniques, in Chapter 20, which talks about Fractals, Graftals, Particle Systems, IFS Modeling, solid textures and extrusion textures, hierarchical B-splines, terrain modeling, modeling of waves and other natural phenomena, dynamic constraints and constraint-based models, etc. Throughout the text, from the introduction of scan-conversion algorithms for lines (in Chapter 3) right through the advanced scan-conversion techniques for general conics in Chapter 20, the ideas of antialiasing and the theory behind them are developed. Chapter 21 provides an introduction to animation, including a discussion of temporal aliasing and how to deal with it. There's a chapter on Color, and a 3-chapter sequence on user-interface design. There's a chapter on advanced hardware for graphics. There are chapters on spline curves and surfaces, and on image manipulation and storage techniques, including IFS compression, and image compositing techniques (both alpha-channel and hardware methods). OK, I admit it, this looks a lot like an advertisement. But someone asked, so I felt it would be OK to answer. By the way, I've posted some small excerpts from the book as answers to questions a while back, including some questions about scan-converting circles and aligned ellipses. We've made some effort to have people who work "in the real world" check our material to be sure that we don't include any goofy ideas like scan-converting a circle by computing (cos t, sin t) for a bunch of values of t, rounding, and connecting the dots. (this has been seriously proposed here more than once, and usually someone comes up with the magic word "Bresenham," thank heavens). -John Hughes, Mathematics and Computer Science Dept's., Brown University Internet: jfh@CS.BROWN.EDU BITNET: jfh@browncs; UUCP: ...!{decvax,allegra}!brunix!jfh "I was in this prematurely air-conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles..." -L. Childs