Computer Graphics and Virtual Environments : From Realism to Real-Time

This book provides a clear tutorial guide to essential concepts in computer graphics, including state-of-the-art techniques and novel applications such as virtual reality and other forms of 3D interaction. Providing a rich source of examples with which to experiment, and encouraging the development of programming skills, this book is ideal for anyone interested in the study of computer graphics.

Shelving category: Computer Graphics

Computer Graphics and Virtual Environments
From Realism to Real-Time

Mel Slater, Anthony Steed, Yiorgos Chrysanthou

Real-time virtual environments (VEs) are playing a fundamental part in the communications revolution. We can already watch news presented by virtual newscasters and play first-person 3D graphically based games with other players distributed around the world. Computer graphics is driving the technology for VEs, but the need for real-time is in conflict with the quest for increasing realism.

 This book shows how a real-time graphics system can be built using a "top down" approach to enhance understanding. It begins with high-level descriptions of perceptual and lighting issues relating to VEs, but quickly becomes more practical, showing how ray tracing can be used to produce high-quality images. Relaxing the assumptions of ray tracing, chapter by chapter, produces a system for generating 3D images in real-time or, in other words, the rendering pipeline of a graphics system.The book is intended for undergraduates or postgraduates studying computer graphics or the visual aspects of VEs. It aims to give students practical knowledge of the fundamentals of the graphics rendering pipeline, modern techniques to maximize the frame rate, and some in-depth information about rendering photorealistic images, motivating the discussion with a focus on VEs.

Mel Slater is Professor of Virtual Environments in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. He has been Visiting Professor at University of California Berkeley and Visiting Scientist at the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics. He is a Senior Editor of the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, author of Computer Graphics: Systems and Concepts (Addison-Wesley 1987) with Rod Salmon, and co-author of Distributed Window Systems (Addison-Wesley 1992). He is currently EPSRC Senior Research Fellow studying the light field approach to computer graphics.

Anthony Steed is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Virtual Environments in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. His main research interests are in immersive virtual environments, support for scalability in distributed virtual reality systems and collaboration between participants in virtual space.

Yiorgos Chrysanthou is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. His teaching is on computer graphics and virtual environments and his research interests include real-time rendering, cloth modeling, simulation and computational geometry.


Key features
· emphasizes 3D graphics, while covering some fundamentals of 2D graphics
· explains why virtual reality works from a perceptual point of view
· the top-down approach motivates readers and enhances understanding
· provides sufficient detail to enable readers to implement the techniques described
· "how to do it" examples in VRML and OpenGL