Computer graphics and image processing (Q2785775)

Computergraphik und Bildverarbeitung is a fairly small text book (a total of 342 pages) that gives the best coverage/length ratio of computer graphics texts I've seen so far. As typical in German books, the chapters are very short, the language is concise, the figures are beautiful and the mathematics is precise. The book was written for German universities mainly for students of mathematics, computer science, and engineering, who have a fairly strong background in various branches of mathematics. Among the various topics covered are:NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEvery short introduction into hardware and color models, followed by a reasonable coverage on several raster algorithms; clipping and area fill is covered in less then 10 pages; 2-D geometric transformations and geometric data structures are in 10 pages followed by splines (mostly curves) in 20 pages; fractals and several image processing techniques take up almost 100 pages; traditional 3-D transformations, projections, modeling of simple polygonal shapes, animation and hidden lines and hidden surfaces occupy another 100 pages or so; shading, ray tracing, reflection models, texture mapping, radiosity are glanced over in about 30 pages.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe book is badly out of balance. There is lots of math in image processing, fractals and the like, however, the book is weak in hardware, raster techniques, and on methods of realistic image generations (that takes up almost a semester worth of study in the reviewer's institution). However, the book is well written, and if the coverage is acceptable in German universities, then the students definitely will enjoy this book.