The capabilities and computational speed of today’s hardware have dramatically enhanced graphics technology. These improvements happen so quickly, however, that it is often difficult for programmers to keep pace. Graphics Programming Methods is a unique collection of application and technique-driven articles that provide practical methods for solving problems facing every graphics programmer. Each article is written by an experienced programmer and details how to apply new techniques or improve upon widely-used methods.

Using interesting and advanced research, the collection addresses key issues in animation, geometry, and rendering. All of the research is presented in a practical and approachable manner and most examples include full source code, making immediate implementation of the techniques possible. This innovative collection is a must-have resource for graphics programmers that will help you think critically, expand your knowledge, and create new methods of your own.

SECTION HIGHLIGHTS: ANIMATION: Simulating & Rendering Particle Systems, Real-time Animation of Trees, Multiresolution of Hierarchical Bodies, Scripted Bodies and Spline-Driven Animation, Building an Advanced Facial Expression System, Inverse Displacement Constraints in Real-time Cloth and Soft Body Models GEOMETRY: Automatic Parameterizing on the Cube, Filling Texture Holes Using the Euclidean Distance Map, Code Smoothing Algorithm for 3D Reconstructed Surfaces, Higher-Order Surfaces Using Curved Point-Normal Triangles, Visible Terrain Grid Determination Using the Frustum, Tree Face Portals with Solid Geometry, Framework for Rapid 3D Level Design Using MAXScript ™ Code Generation RENDERING: Modified Phong-Blinn Light Model for Shadowed Areas, Stochastic Iteration for Non-diffuse Global Illumination, Rendering with Adaptive Integration, Illumination-Based Occlu-sion Culling, Antialiasing for Bump Maps and a Fast Normalization Trick, Pixel Shader Optimization for Terrain Rendering

ON THE CD-ROM: * The DirectX ® 9 SDK * OpenGL Utility Kit (GLUT) * Simple DirectMedia Layer Library (SDL) * NVIDIA CG Toolkit * Source code from the articles in C and C++ * Color images, videos, and demos for select articles

Contributors: Gy?rgy Antal Ian Ashdown Tony Barrera Bal?zs Benedek Ewert Bengtsson Antonio Calomeni St?phane Capo Ignacio Casta?o Waldemar Celes Juan M. Cordero Willem H. de Boer Kenny Erleben Fran?ois Faure Chi-Wing Fu Alexandre Ganea Oscar Garcia-Panyella Thomas Di Giacomo Anders Hast Knud Henriksen Naty Hoffman Robert James Jesse Laeuchli William Leeson Javier Matellanes Maciej Matyka Kenny Mitchell Siu-Hang Or Trent Polack Arcot J. Preetham R. Grant Reed Jon Sporring Conor Stokes L?szl? Sz?csi L?szl? Szirmay-Kalos Mark Theyer Christopher Tremblay John van der Burg Andrew Weber Jason Weber Tien-Tsin Wong

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: The DirectX® 9 SDK is required for some applications and is included on the CD-ROM. The code was all compiled on PCs running the Windows operating system. However, much of the code is cross platform and will work properly on the Macintosh and under Linux. Additionally, several samples require access to OpenGL extension headers. These are available at oss.sgi.com/projects/ ogl-sample/sdk.html. Applications using the graphic programming language Cg from NVIDIA require the NVIDIA Cg Toolkit included on the CD-ROM. DirectX is Licensed Software, the use of which is governed by an English language break-the-seal EULA inside the Licensed Software.