Ray Tracing from the Ground Up

Ray Tracing from the Ground Up by Kevin Suffern
Price: $89.00
Availability: In stock.

Summary

With the increase in computing speed and due to the high quality of the optical effects it achieves, ray tracing is becoming a popular choice for interactive and animated rendering. This book takes readers through the whole process of building a modern ray tracer from scratch in C++. All concepts and processes are explained in detail with the aid of hundreds of diagrams, ray-traced images, and sample code. It is suitable for undergraduate and graduate computer graphics courses and for individual programmers who would like to learn ray tracing.

Details

ISBN: 978-1-56881-272-4
Year: 2007
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 784
Web Site:
http://www.raytracegroundup.com

Reviews

SciTech Book News (PDF)

March 2008

“Suffern describes how to write a ray tracer step-by-step …”

The Midwest Book Review (PDF)

January 2008

“Any college-level collection strong in advanced information technology needs this.”

Peter Shirley, author of Fundamentals of Computer Graphics

September 2007

We’ve used draft chapters from Kevin Suffern’s book for a number of classes at the University of Utah and they have been very useful. This book is timely as ray tracing is poised to become the dominant algorithm for graphics, and there is no other up-to-date introduction to that topic. Further, it is a very well written book with all the details needed to write your own ray tracer. This book is a must for any budding graphics programmer. I wish I’d had this book when I was starting out!

Eric Haines, co-author of Real-Time Rendering

September 2007

The title of this book fits perfectly. Theory and code snippets are blended to show how to make a classical or stochastic ray tracer from scratch. It assumes the reader has just about no knowledge of graphics and at most some understanding of calculus. The informative illustrations alone make the book worth purchasing by anyone planning on teaching or understanding more about the essentials of ray tracing.

-The UTS Amigos, Film Credits: Happy Feet [2006], Justen Marshall, R&D Supervisor, Steve Agland, Peter Brownlow, Chris Cooper, Peter Georges, Adrian Paul, and Bryan Smith, R & D Software Programmers

September 2007

Being taught computer graphics at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) by Kevin was critical for our careers at Animal Logic, and led to our work on the Academy Award winning film Happy Feet. Most importantly, learning ray tracing provided us with an in-depth understanding of shading algorithms. This knowledge was invaluable for our rendering, regardless of how we did it.

It's great to see Kevin's ray tracing notes published in the book Ray Tracing from the Ground Up, as this allows a much wider audience to access the material. Kevin is able to draw on his many years of experience in the classroom to provide a comprehensive coverage of important rendering concepts. He has always presented clear explanations, colour illustrations and step-by-step instructions including source code.

Erik Reinhard, University of Central Florida, University of Bristol, author of Color Imaging: Fundamentals and Applications

September 2007

Ray Tracing from the Ground Up not only covers all aspects of ray tracing, but does so at a level that allows both undergraduate and graduate students to appreciate the beauty and algorithmic elegance of ray tracing. At the same time, this book goes into more than sufficient detail to deserve a place on the bookshelves of many professionals as a reference work…As such, I can heartily recommend this book to both professionals as well as students and teachers…Whether its intended use is as a ray-tracing reference or as the basis of a course on ray tracing, this book is essential reading.

—Erik Reinhard

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