A K Peters Ltd.

Color imaging; fundamentals and applications. (CD-ROM included)

Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and computer engineering, this text/DVD explains color theory and its practical use in engineering-oriented disciplines such as computer graphics, computer vision, photography, film, and image processing. Section I, on principles, covers physics of light, chemistry of matter, human vision, and perception. Section II covers color models, with chapters on topics such as photometry, color spaces, and illuminants. Section III covers digital color imaging, with chapters on image capture, display technologies, and color management. Appendices offer background on vectors and matrices, trigonometry, and complex numbers. The companion DVD contains almost all of the color photography included in the book in high dynamic range format, and also includes source code for several algorithms. Reinhard teaches at the University of Bristol and the University of Florida. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The complete guide to Torque X.

Microsoft has made its Torque X gaming platform available to independent software developers for the first time, and Kanalakis (an original Torque X developer) reveals code examples, detailed instructions and tools needed to design new games for the Xbox 360 system. The author supplies detailed code for 2D game programming with tilemaps, and 3D designs with and without artificial intelligence. This guide presumes that fledgling developers do possess basic game design skills, however, and only supplies users with the key features of the Torque X framework along with sample game codes. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Fluid simulation for computer graphics.

Bridson (computer science, U. of British Columbia) works in the intersection between computer graphics and scientific computing. He explains the steps for animating fully three-dimensional incompressible flows from the underlying mathematics to implementing the flows in an actual computer graphic. After reviewing the basics, he covers smoke, water, fire, and viscous fluids. A final section sets out algorithms for turbulence, coupling fluids and solids, shallow water, and other flow. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Graphics & visualization; principles & algorithms.

This textbook on visual computing methods and data analysis differs from similar reference volumes by integrating graphic and visualization topics such as subdivision surfaces, scene graphs, shadow generation, ambient occlusion and high dynamic range images. Theoharis (U. of Athens, Greece), Papaioannou (Athens U., Greece), Patrikalakis (MIT) and Platis (U of Peloponnese, Greece) cover the acquisition, analysis and synthesis of visual data, concluding each chapter with exercises that can be used as class assignments for engineering students. Multi-resolution models and skeletal animation are also discussed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Haptic rendering; foundations, algorithms, and applications.

This introduction to interfaces between humans and computers that exploit the human sense of touch emphasizes algorithmic perspectives that are important to researchers and developers, and discusses fundamental concepts in the psychophysics of touch, and issues in device and interface design. It also surveys current rendering algorithms and novel applications. Lin is the Beverly W. Long Distinguished Professor in Computer Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Otaduyan is an assistant professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC Madrid), where he works at the Modeling and Virtual Reality Group (GMRV), in the Department of Computer Science. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Legacy of the Luoshu; the 4,000 year search for the meaning of the magic square of order three, 2d ed.

A magic square contains numbers — in this case three on a side — that give the same total if added across, down, or diagonally. Swetz (emeritus mathematics, Pennsylvania State U.-Harrisburg) has been researching them for over three decades, and here shares what he has discovered. Among his discussions are its Chinese origins on the Luo River, its use in fortune telling and feng shui, Chinese variations, what cultures did and did not know about it, and its ultimate significance. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mathematical people; profiles and interviews, 2d ed.

Most of the 25 mathematicians were interviewed for the volume, but others are profiled in an essay or an autobiographical account. Photographs are provided. The goal is to suggest to general readers that mathematics and mathematicians are not as weird as popular media portrays them. The first edition was published in 1985 by Birkhäuser Boston in collaboration with the Mathematical Association of America. A new preface is included in the second edition, and some notes are added to reflect particularly interesting events that have taken place since the publication of the first edition. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Real-time rendering, 3d ed.

The third edition of this textbook on 3-D rendering in computer animation has been expanded to include new programming algorithms and shading technologies that have been introduced in recent years. Akenine-Möller (Lund U., Sweden), Haines (Autodesk, Inc.) and Hoffman (Activision) aim most of this information toward designers of video games and computer animators, although a strong mathematic foundation is also assumed in some of the more advanced chapters (a review of linear algebra and trigonometry is included). Chapters on ambient occlusion, displacement mapping and global subsurface scattering are also presented. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)