Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics by James D. Foley, Andries Van Dam (review)

Book Reviews 59 The assessment of future "mass-driver" propulsion in space is full of pseudo-technical jargon, designed to leave the reader with an impression of authenticity and certainty. "Calculations show" a speed of six miles per second is "within the operating capabilities of presentday commercially available ... solid state switches", "the necessary pieces ... are also obtainable as 'shelf items' or easily constructable by an ordinary machine shop", etc. But, again, the reader cannotjudge the validity of "calculations" or the availability of unspecified "shelf items". O'Neill's treatment of more mundane artifacts is equally careless, imprecise and unconvincing. He states that magnetically supported "floater" vehicles moving in vacuum tunnels would travel in 14minutes from New York to Washington at a cost of less than $4 per passenger (1981 dollars?). Why is it that such a tremendously attractive commercial opportunity remains unexploited? Similarly, one wonders what would be the advantage of an automatic car driving system which does not allow speeds higher than 75 mph (to prevent excessive fuel consumption, noise, and tire wear). The design of the "system" amounts to throwing together such present-day items as inertial guidance ("inexpensive(?) spinoff from some military hardware"), computers, radars, radios, magnetic markers and sensors. The author doesn't say why such a system would be inexpensive and competitive, compared to conventional freeways, or why it hasn't been already developed. Just like the automatic driving system, which is an assembly of existing components, some of the other 2081 scenarios lack imagination. In the automated factory of the future we find surprisingly oldfashioned machine tools being attended by man-like robots equipped with two (why not four or ten?) "hands". The space colonies are "very Earthlike", full of flowers, trees and birds. O'Neill's 2081 confirms what the late Marshall McLuhan noted when he wrote in The Medium is the Massage (1967): "We impose the form of the old on the content of the new. The malady lingers on. We march backwards into the future." A non-technical reader would gain a better feel for the future from good science fiction than from O'Neill's 2081. A reader with scientific and technical background must look elsewhere for plausible 2081 scenarios. Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics. James D. Foley and Andries Van Dam. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1982. 664 pp., illus. Cloth, $35.00. ISBN: 0-201-14468-9. Reviewed by Richard Land" This student- and user-oriented text on Computer Graphics has been carefully prepared and developed in the college classroom. The book's objective is to prepare the reader to produce useful images with presently available hardware. The field of computer-processed images has expanded recently as prices for the facilities have come within broader reach, and performance offers compatibility if not competition with other image-producing and -manipulating technologies. Even the home computers are offering a level of sophistication in graphics that ten years ago could only be used by serious government supported laboratories. While no one book can be sufficiently complete and comprehensive to dominate the field now the way Newman and Sproull [I] did in the midseventies , this book is the best of the current efforts. In many ways, it improves on the earlier standard, as general understanding and the equipment have improved as well.The shift from vector graphics (which I prefer) to raster and bit map technology has been incorporated. Many contemporary problems are introduced: shading, reflections and transparency, among them. Most issues of pattern recognition and image enhancement are beyond the scope of this book. Difficult choices were undoubtedly encountered in selecting the material, but it seems that wisdom prevailed. Currently the market is being flooded with graphics instruction manuals that tend to be tied to the limited hardware and aims of personal computers. These hastily produced books may be useful for specific examples and routines that apply to hardware and installations under consideration, but they do not have the broader range of applicability and methodical concern of the book under review here. The authors state, "The purpose of this book is to provide both a tutorial and a reference source for readers interested in the many aspects of modern interactive graphics: hardware...