Some Books

A few interesting books have come out recently. Full disclosure: I have an indirect connection to the first and third.

  • First one’s free to download: Ray Tracing Gems II. That link also notes where the Github code repo is, shows the Table of Contents, etc. You can also download individual chapters from Apress’s site. Oh, and here’s a funny review from PC Gamer.
  • Second one’s a reasonable introduction to the basic ideas behind 3D computer graphics: Computer Graphics from Scratch. This book has nothing to do with the computer language called Scratch (which No Starch also sells books about). There’s a free sample chapter on that page. Also, I noticed today that all No Starch Press books are 35% off until August 9th. I’m appreciating this publisher more and more, as they offer their books in a variety of unprotected e-book formats, including PDF.
  • Third one’s not about 3D graphics, but written by a graphics luminary: Deep Learning: A Visual Approach, by Andrew Glassner (who also wrote a foreword for Ray Tracing Gems II). This is an equation-light introduction to the field, instead using lots of figures to build up your understanding. There’s a free sample chapter and also a Github link. This repo has three more free chapters, about running scikit-learn and Keras. It also includes 870 figures from the book, all under the MIT License for reuse. Again from No Starch Press, so their discount applies, there’s a DRM-free PDF, etc.

Oh, and one more page from No Starch Press that made me laugh: their manga guides, such as this one

Check them out. As usual, they each have a free chapter available. From my brief sampling, they look fun but don’t appear dumbed down and are not shy about using proper math.