Computer graphics and geometrical modelling (Q2739723)

This book is a mixed bag of basic methods from computer graphics, geometric modeling and computational geometry. It starts out with basics of algebra and geometry, formerly the curriculum of a good high school. Then it moves to the classical themes of geometric transformations, projections, color models (no black-and-white tone models or gamma correction), shading models and techniques, simple graphics hardware, raster algorithms and global illumination methods, i.e. ray tracing and radiosity. Up to this point the book is the watered down version of the classics by Foley et al. Geometric modeling is treated in the next segment of the book with such items as solids, and curves and surfaces. Geometric data structures are briefly touched upon, which is the only uniqueness of the book; traditional text do not bother with items like this. The closure is brought upon the book by some simple computational geometry algorithms such as convex hull methods. One walks ways from this book by asking a simple question: what was the authors' purpose with this book? Would not have been better for both the authors and the student to translate one of the standard graphics text to German? There are so many graphics books on the market and it is very hard to come up with anything new. If one needs a text in a language other than English, translate one of the proven ones so that the book does not have to get a bad review. The danger with a book like this is that the student will not learn neither graphics nor geometric modeling well. He/she will have an idea of several things, however, his/her knowledge will be shallow indeed.