Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach With Shader-Based Opengl

really helpful for a CG undergraduate

good

Good: I thought that this book was quite good explaining the theory of computer graphics while using OpenGL (Core Profile) for the API for the practical side of things. I really liked the fact that the core profile of OpenGL was used for the code examples. This is definitely the way to go for OpenGL. The fixed function pipeline is on its way out. Also I'm glad the author discussed shaders and buffers so early on in the book rather than use a wrapper library. The book contains excellent exercises for students to answer, although I didn't really go into them. Bad: Since OpenGL was used after the theory was explained I felt I needed to read up further on the OpenGL commands from the OpenGL website as a reference. I had some trouble in getting the code to work on Windows 7 64 bit using MS visual studio 2010 express edition. I ended up downloading the latest versions of glew and freeglut rather than using the libraries that the author had packaged in a zip file with his code. I also had to fix a bug in the code that read from the shader files. There are a few other mistakes too regarding offsets of buffer data in vertex array objects. The code example of bump mapping is just plain wrong and I haven't got it to work yet. The author does give me a framework to use for setting up OpenGL but code examples should always work and not be so difficult to setup. I really wish the author had put just a little more effort with some of it. The book is a little expensive too. It's double the price of some other books on the market on the same subject e.g. OpenGL Superbible 5th Ed which I also own (although that book is just plain terrible with use of a wrapper library for vertex arrays, at least its code works right off the bat). As a side note, I had to put the line glewExperimental = GL_TRUE; just before the glewInit() function call before things worked. I'm not sure if this is because of my version of Windows or not. Overall, I give three stars as the theory was really good though I felt at this price the quality of the code was lacking.

This is a book very easy to read, it has the necessary content to learn about computer graphics and is well updated. Very useful if you will do computer graphics with OpenGL and C++

I purchased this book as I wanted to learn a newer version of OpenGL (version 3 and above) and found it not too bad, but NOT good. At the moment, with the exception of the OpenGL SuperBible: Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference (5th Edition) it is the only book I found on the subject. Having looked at both of these books I liked Angel's better, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. To supplement this book I would recommend the tutorial by "arcsynthesis" which is really good. I learned mostly from the tutorial and supplemented the theory side with the book. About the book: The book covers graphics theory in a decent way, although I find it quite dry and hard to follow at times; but most of the stuff needed is there. On the examples side it is quite bad. Some examples printed in the book are different from the ones available for download. The download ones are buggy compared to the printed version. As well the code is nicely organised in the book, however, the code online is horrible in my opinion, and on top of it all the makefiles provided don't work. Hopefully they will get fixed soon. Another thing I found annoying is when the author claims the code is in the back of the book, but it is not. example: Chapter 2 3D Gasket, on pg 97 says that "The complete program is given in Appendix A", and it is not. I guess it needs better editing.

I learned some basic 3D graphics in college and now I am coming back to the subject, using this book as a reference. The pictures are laughably bad for a book about... GRAPHICS. The author sometimes references the wrong figures or mixes up his variables. Most of the derivations are unmotivated or irrelevant. There are many fine resources on the web that explain the math and the code better.

If you need it as a textbook like I did, you have to buy it. But if you're trying to learn OpenGL on your own you might not find this helpful. The book throws so much information at you in such a small amount of space it was really very hard to grasp, even as a student who was taking a course on OpenGl. I did not find this book very helpful.

Edward Angel war immer schon ein guter Tip zum Einsteigen für Fachhochschul-Studierende. Die Shader-basierte Herangehensweise in den neuen Versionen von OpenGL ist deutlich komplizierter als früher; entsprechend ist der Lernaufwand für die Studierenden höher. Angel bring das Ganze meines Erachtens immer noch gut an den Mann (oder die Frau), jedoch muss ich klar feststellen, dass ich in Vorlesungen an der Fachhochschule nicht mehr so weit komme wie früher. Das liegt nicht an Angel, sondern an der Komplexität der Materie. Insgesamt überlege ich, ob ich an der FH nicht doch auf Java3D umsteige, da eine Vorlesung kaum noch ausreicht, das moderne OpenGL so weit zu vermitteln, dass auch durchschnittliche Studierende noch Erfolgserlebnisse haben und in der Lage sind, z.B. ein kleines Spiel zu programmieren. Den Angel empfehle ich jedoch auf jeden Fall: Der Top-Down-Approach funktioniert meines Erachtens auch bei Shader-basiertem OpenGL gut, und das Buch ist gut lesbar. Einziger Wermutstropfen sind die immer noch hier und da im Code auf der Homepage des Autors enthaltenen Fehler; hier muss der Dozent genau aufpassen und ggfs. korrigierend eingreifen. Auf kurze Nachricht reagierte der Autor jedoch sofort in angenehmer Weise, so dass man davon ausgehen kann, immer noch Unterstützung von ihm zu erhalten. Insgesamt ist das Buch aus meiner Sicht immer noch eine Empfehlung; ideales Zielpublikum wäre aus meiner Sicht der Universitäts-Student.