Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!apple!vsi1!zorch!xanthian
From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Foley and van Dam book II
Message-ID: <1990Jul19.102602.1246@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: 19 Jul 90 10:26:02 GMT
References: <25553@mimsy.umd.edu> <3777@csccat.UUCP>
Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix
Lines: 67

In article <3777@csccat.UUCP> larry@csccat.UUCP (Larry Spence) writes:
>In article <25553@mimsy.umd.edu> rmr@tove.cs.umd.edu (Randy M. Rohrer) writes:
>>
>>        The new edition of "Foley and van Dam" is available.
>>I just received it directly from Addison Wesley last Thursday.
>>It should be appearing in bookstores at any time.
>
>It's here!
>
>>It is very good, a complete re-write of the earlier version. 
>       ^^^^ ^^^^
>Agreed.  Although they obviously couldn't go into great detail on a lot
>of things, they sure tried to cover (almost) everything!  
>
>>            approx. 1200 pp., 21 chapters plus an
>>            appendix which reviews mathematics for 
>>            computer graphics.
>
>It's _only_ 1174 pages... %( %)
>
>A memorable specification:
>
>   (on polygon interior conventions)
>   "Another rule is the nonexterior rule... if we think of the curve
>    as a fence, the interior is the region in which animals can be 
>    penned up." [p. 965]
>
>I'm having a little trouble implementing from their description %> ...
>   
>Is there an email address where readers can submit corrections?  On page
>716, there are two references [FOUR88] and [FIUM89] that do not appear
>in the bibliography at the end of the book.  I'm pretty sure that the
>second is Fiume's book "The Mathematical Structure of Raster Graphics,"
>but I'm not sure on the Fournier reference.

One of the two new authors for the second edition follows comp.graphics;
I'm sorry to say I've forgotten which.  Since lots of us would be
interested in corrections, get a set together and post them.

I got my copy three days ago.  The first word that comes to mind is
"overwhelming", no doubt about it.

The best part was the apology in the preface for all the stuff they had
to leave out!  ;-)

Of course, like anything produced over several years, it suffers a bit
from being out of date the day it is published.  I was hoping for good
coverage of X Windows, the latest hot item in the graphics job market,
but it gets just a few index references, and mostly is just mentioned
in passing.  Oh, well, the bookshelves are full of X Windows books, and
nothing for a long time is going to hold a candle to this book for an
in depth overview of graphics.  The emphasis this time around has gone
completely to the raster world, which is nice since that is (at least)
Jim Foley's specialty.

I was hoping for time to post at least the table of contents.  If no one
has done so by the time I get back next week, and this comp.sys.amiga.games
vote I'm running hasn't drowned me, and I survive 1200 miles on a motor
scooter, I'll try to make time for it.  This definitely is again _the_
standard graphics textbook.


Kent, the man from xanth.
<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
--
I made my way through the computer controlled monorail, car by car, cruising
for sentient beings.  -- Mark Leyner