An Introduction to Computer Graphics for Artists is an application-independent, reader-friendly primer for anyone with a serious desire to understand 3D Computer Graphics. Written by a veteran of the computer graphics industry whose previous career included film animation and various spells as Art Director for video games, Andrew Paquette draws on his experiences both as an artist and a manager. Far too often artists, even professionals, lack a basic understanding of the principles of computer graphics. The result is inefficiency and lower quality of work. This book addresses these issues by providing fundamental information in a university course format, with theoretical material, detailed illustrations, and projects to test the reader's understanding of the concepts covered. Opening with the first and most basic elements of computer graphics, the book rapidly advances into progressively more complex concepts. Each of the elements, however simple, are important to understand because each is an essential link in a chain that allows an artist to master any computer graphics application. With this accomplished, the artist can use technology to satisfy his goals, instead of the technology being master of the artist. All students wanting to learn more about computer graphics from an artistic viewpoint, particularly those intending to pursue a career in computer game design or film animation, will find this book invaluable.

This book presents state-of-the-art methods in computer graphics rendering. The papers included in this volume were selected after careful review by an international committee of experts. Included are various topics related to the generation of synthetic images: visibility, global illumination, perception, hardware assisted rendering, reflectance models, real-time rendering, antialiasing, compression and image-based rendering.

This book summarizes recent advances in robotics using 3D printers and rapid prototyping as a concept development tool. The book is focused on industrial applications, educational aspects, rehabilitation, and other related topics. In particular, the book is intended to offer the reader a smooth yet deep introduction to the use of 3D printers and rapid prototyping techniques as a solution to robotics and mechatronics problems, highlighting successful case studies.

This book contains the proceedings of the 10th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, which took place from the 21st to the 23rd of June, 1999, in Granada, Spain. Origi nally an outgrowth of the annual Eurographics meeting, the workshop was organized by a dedicated group of researchers who felt there was insufficient opportunity at Eu rographics and Siggraph to exchange ideas specifically on rendering. Over the past 9 years, the workshop has become renown as an international watershed for top quality work in this field, attracting between 50 and 100 attendees each year to share their latest research. This year we received a total of 63 submissions. Each paper was carefully reviewed by two of the 25 international programme committee members, as well as two external reviewers, selected by the co-chairs from a pool of 71 individuals. (The programme committee and external reviewers are listed following the contents pages.) In this new review process, all submissions and reviews were handled electronically, with the ex ception of videos submitted with a few of the papers. This streamlined the review process considerably, while reducing the costs and confusion associated with courier delivery of hundreds of papers."

The book contains the proceedings of the 8th Eurographics Rendering Workshop, which took place from 16th to 18th June, 1997, in Saint Etienne, France. After a series of seven successful events the workshop is now well established as the major international forum in the field of rendering and illumination techniques. It brought together the experts of this field. Their recent research results are compiled in this proceedings together with many color images that demonstrate new ideas and techniques. This year we received a total of 63 submissions of which 28 were selected for the workshop after a period of careful reviewing and evaluation by the 27 mem bers of the international program committee. The quality of the submissions was again very high and, unfortunately, many interesting papers had to be rejected. In addition to regular papers the program also contains two invited lectures by Shenchang Eric Chen (Live Picture) and Per Christensen (Mental Images). The papers in this proceedings contain new research results in the areas of Finite-Element and Monte-Carlo illumination algorithms, image-based render ing, outdoor and natural illumination, error metrics, perception, texture and color handling, data acquisition for rendering, and efficient use of hardware. While some contributions report results from more efficient or elegant algo rithms, others pursue new and experimental approaches to find better solutions to the open problems in rendering."

Anyone who uses Blender needs this book. Blender users know that it can be used for modeling, animation, and rendering, but it can also be used as a fully functional compositing and post-production application. This book explores Blender's use as a compositing and post-production tool in the video and film production pipeline. In this book, you will learn how to: Create and apply masks and special effects in Blender Composite images using Blender's node-based compositor Sequence and overlay video and audio using Blender's non-linear editor What you'll learn

This book provides concise yet step-by-step examples on using all of the power of Blender to provide a complete post-production workbench. Specifically, this book shows you how to: Create Masks and Rotoscope video Texture mattes and video planes Composite any image or render with other images Introduce special effects, such as blur, smoke, and light. Add titles and text, mixes, fades, wipes and splices Remove Green Screen and composite CG with live action shots Assemble all the shots and audio into a completed movie Who this book is for

Film and video professionals and enthusiasts interested in an open source alternative to commercial compositing and video effects software like AfterEffects, Fusion, and Shake. Table of Contents Blender OverviewBlender in the PipelineWelcome to Blender Formats3D ElementsCamera and WorldShadingAnimated EffectsRenderingNode-Based CompositingManipulating ImagesAdvanced NodesNonlinear Video EditorSequencer Effects

If you're a developer looking to supplement your own data tools and services, this concise ebook covers the most useful sources of public data available today. You'll find useful information on APIs that offer broad coverage, tie their data to the outside world, and are either accessible online or feature downloadable bulk data. You'll also find code and helpful links.

This guide organizes APIs by the subjects they cover--such as websites, people, or places--so you can quickly locate the best resources for augmenting the data you handle in your own service. Categories include: Website tools such as WHOIS, bit.ly, and Compete Services that use email addresses as search terms, including Github Finding information from just a name, with APIs such as WhitePages Services, such as Klout, for locating people with Facebook and Twitter accounts Search APIs, including BOSS and Wikipedia Geographical data sources, including SimpleGeo and U.S. Census Company information APIs, such as CrunchBase and ZoomInfo APIs that list IP addresses, such as MaxMind Services that list books, films, music, and products

Create a MongoDB cluster that will to grow to meet the needs of your application. With this short and concise book, you'll get guidelines for setting up and using clusters to store a large volume of data, and learn how to access the data efficiently. In the process, you'll understand how to make your application work with a distributed database system.

"Scaling MongoDB" will help you: Set up a MongoDB cluster through sharding Work with a cluster to query and update data Operate, monitor, and backup your cluster Plan your application to deal with outages

By following the advice in this book, you'll be well on your way to building and running an efficient, predictable distributed system using MongoDB.

How do you use R to import, manage, visualize, and analyze real-world data? With this short, hands-on tutorial, you learn how to collect online data, massage it into a reasonable form, and work with it using R facilities to interact with web servers, parse HTML and XML, and more. Rather than use canned sample data, you'll plot and analyze current home foreclosure auctions in Philadelphia.

This practical mashup exercise shows you how to access spatial data in several formats locally and over the Web to produce a map of home foreclosures. It's an excellent way to explore how the R environment works with R packages and performs statistical analysis.Parse messy data from public foreclosure auction postings Plot the data using R's PBSmapping package Import US Census data to add context to foreclosure data Use R's lattice and latticeExtra packages for data visualization Create multidimensional correlation graphs with the pairs() scatterplot matrix package

This book considers evolution at different scales: sequences, genes, gene families, organelles, genomes and species. The focus is on the mathematical and computational tools and concepts, which form an essential basis of evolutionary studies, indicate their limitations, and give them orientation. Recent years have witnessed rapid progress in the mathematics of evolution and phylogeny, with models and methods becoming more realistic, powerful, and complex.
Aimed at graduates and researchers in phylogenetics, mathematicians, computer scientists and biologists, and including chapters by leading scientists: A. Bergeron, D. Bertrand, D. Bryant, R. Desper, O. Elemento, N. El-Mabrouk, N. Galtier, O. Gascuel, M. Hendy, S. Holmes, K. Huber, A. Meade, J. Mixtacki, B. Moret, E. Mossel, V. Moulton, M. Pagel, M.-A. Poursat, D. Sankoff, M. Steel, J. Stoye, J. Tang, L.-S. Wang, T. Warnow, Z. Yang, this book of contributed chapters explains the basis and covers the recent results in this highly topical area.

As the first book for intermediate and advanced users of Google SketchUp, this Cookbook goes beyond the basics to explore the complex features and tools that design professionals use. You'll get numerous step-by-step tutorials for solving common (and not so common) design problems, with detailed color graphics to guide your way, and discussions that explain additional ways to complete a task. Google SketchUp Cookbook will help you:

Use SketchUp more efficiently by taking advantage of components and groups Learn new techniques for using Follow Me, Intersect, and constraints Go beyond simple textures with tools such as texture positioning and Photo Match Create animations and walkthroughs, and explore design scenarios by using layers and scenes Learn how to use styles to customize your presentations Combine SketchUp with the 3D Warehouse and Google Earth

Google SketchUp Cookbook is ideal for architects, engineers, interior designers, product designers, woodworkers, and other professionals and hobbyists who want to work more efficiently and achieve true mastery of this amazing tool.

Create in 3D with Tinkercad! If you can dream it, you can create it--using Tinkercad. This free tool gives everyone the power to create 3D models, regardless of your level of experience. With the help of Tinkercad For Dummies, you'll have the knowledge you need to plan your designs, the know-how to utilize the platform's drag-and-drop tools to create your design, and the information you need to print or export your designs to use them elsewhere. Tinkercad is for everyone! It's simple enough to be used by kids and students, but robust enough that an adult could use it to create a complex product prototype. With more than 4 million designs posted in the Tinkercad community, the platform is also popular with teachers around the world. Why not join in on the fun? Create your Tinkercad account and join the community Use the drag-and-drop tools to build 3D images Export your designs to have them 3D printed Learn the principles of great 3D design Tinkercad is truly fun for all ages, and this hands-on guide makes it faster and easier to start using it right away!

This book offers an up-to-date coverage of the basic principles and of the tools of Bayesian inference in econometrics. Bayesian inference is a branch of statistics that integrates explicitly both data and prior (possibly subjective) information in model building , estimation and evaluation. The book then shows how to use Bayesian methods in a range of models especially suited to the analysis of macroeconomic and financial time series.

An exploration of the basis for social and economic behaviour. Using cellular automata in particular, the authors model various factors that are involved in a system of individuals who interact socially and economically with one another. Computer simulations in the social sciences provide a laboratory in which qualitative ideas about social and economic interactions can be tested. This brings a new dimension to the science, where 'explanations' abound, but are rarely subject to much experimental testing. The authors have chosen Mathematica because it has a number of features which make it uniquely qualified for use by social scientists, especially those without expertise in computer programming. Further, users can easily access and readily interact with the various 3.0 Mathematica notebooks, plus other data to be found at www.telospub.com.

This book illustrates the ease with which various features of LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 can be implemented in addressing research questions that lend themselves to SEM. Its purpose is threefold: (a) to present a nonmathmatical introduction to basic concepts associated with SEM, (b) to demonstrate basic applications of SEM using both the DOS and Windows versions of LISREL 8, as well as both the LISREL and SIMPLIS lexicons, and (c) to highlight particular features of the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 progams that address important caveats related to SEM analyses.

This book is intended neither as a text on the topic of SEM, nor as a comprehensive review of the many statistical funcitons available in the LISREL 8 and PRELIS 2 programs. Rather, the intent is to provide a practical guide to SEM using the LISREL approach. As such, the reader is "walked through" a diversity of SEM applications that include both factor analytic and full latent variable models, as well as a variety of data management procedures.

Simulations and the Future of Learning offers trainers and educators the information and perspective they need to understand, design, build, and deploy computer simulations for this generation. Looking back on his recent first-hand experience as lead designer for an advanced leadership development simulation, author Clark Aldrich has created a detailed case study of the creation and deployment of an e-learning simulation that had the development cycle of a modern computer game. With this book Aldrich, a leader in the e-learning field, has created an intriguing roadmap for the future of learning while taking us along on an entertaining rollercoaster ride of trial and error, success and failure. Simulations and the Future of Learning outlines the design principles and critical decisions around any simulation's components— the interface, the physics and animation systems, the artificial intelligence, and sets and figures. Using this accessible resource, readers will learn how to create and evaluate successful simulations that have the following characteristics: authentic and relevant scenarios; applied pressure situations that tap user's emotion and force them to act; a sense of unrestricted options; and replayability.

This two-volume set (CCIS 175 and CCIS 176) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Education, Simulation and Modeling, CSEM 2011, held in Wuhan, China, in June 2011. The 148 revised full papers presented in both volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from a large number of submissions. The papers cover issues such as multimedia and its application, robotization and automation, mechatronics, computer education, modern education research, control systems, data mining, knowledge management, image processing, communication software, database technology, artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, simulation and modeling, agent based simulation, biomedical visualization, device simulation & modeling, object-oriented simulation, Web and security visualization, vision and visualization, coupling dynamic modeling theory, discretization method, and modeling method research.

If you want to use CouchDB to support real-world applications, you'll need to create MapReduce views that let you query this document-oriented database for meaningful data. With this short and concise ebook, you'll learn how to create a variety of MapReduce views to help you query and aggregate data in CouchDB's large, distributed datasets.

You'll get step-by-step instructions and lots of sample code to create and explore several MapReduce views through the course of the book, using an example database you construct. To work with these different views, you'll learn how to use the Futon web administration console and the cURL command line tool that come with CouchDB. Learn how the Map and Reduce steps work independently and together to index your data Use the example database to create several temporary views based on different criteria Discover the uses of Map and Reduce JavaScript functions Convert your temporary views to permanent views within a design document Learn several options for querying the data within your views Limit the number of results returned, skip some results, or reverse the order of the output Group your results by exact keys or by parts of keys

Bradley Holt, co-founder of the creative services firm Found Line, is a web developer and entrepreneur ten years of PHP and MySQL experience. He began using CouchDB before the release of version 1.0. Bradley is an active member of the PHP community, and can be reached at bradley-holt.com.

If you want to learn to create 3-D models using Google SketchUp, this "Missing Manual" is the ideal place to start. Filled with step-by-step tutorials, this entertaining, reader-friendly guide will have you creating detailed 3-D objects, including building plans, furniture, landscaping plans - even characters for computer games - in no time. "Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual" offers a hands-on tour of the program, with crystal-clear instructions for using every feature and lots of real-world examples to help you pick up the practical skills you need. It helps you learn to use the basic tools, build and animate models, and place your objects in Google Earth.With this book, you will: learn your way around the SketchUp workspace, and explore the differences between working in 2-D and 3-D; build simple 3-D shapes, save them as reusable components, and use SketchUp's Outliner to show or hide them as you work; tackle a complicated model building with lots of detail, and discover timesaving tools for using many components; animate the model by creating an interior walkthrough of your building; and, dress up your model with realistic material shading and shadows, and place it in Google Earth. It's easy to get started. Just download the program from Google.com, and follow the instructions in this book. You'll become a SketchUp master in a jiffy.

Create stunning renders of your 3ds Max models in mental ray with this concise guide. Learn all of the essential concepts such as indirect illumination, materials, render options, shaders, and lighting. Rendering with mental ray and 3ds Max, Second Edition is now revised to cover Autodesk Revit and special effects. The companion website includes all of the necessary project files from inside the book.

This book is the first to provide a comprehensive survey of the computational models and methodologies used for studying the evolution and origin of language and communication. Comprising contributions from the most influential figures in the field, it presents and summarises the state-of-the-art in computational approaches to language evolution, and highlights new lines of development.Essential reading for researchers and students in the fields of evolutionary and adaptive systems, language evolution modelling and linguistics, it will also be of interest to researchers working on applications of neural networks to language problems. Furthermore, due to the fact that language evolution models use multi-agent methodologies, it will also be of great interest to computer scientists working on multi-agent systems, robotics and internet agents.

There's growing interest in learning how to analyze streaming data in large-scale systems such as web traffic, financial transactions, machine logs, industrial sensors, and many others. But analyzing data streams at scale has been difficult to do well--until now. This practical book delivers a deep introduction to Apache Flink, a highly innovative open source stream processor with a surprising range of capabilities. Authors Ellen Friedman and Kostas Tzoumas show technical and nontechnical readers alike how Flink is engineered to overcome significant tradeoffs that have limited the effectiveness of other approaches to stream processing. You'll also learn how Flink has the ability to handle both stream and batch data processing with one technology. * Learn the consequences of not doing streaming well--in retail and marketing, IoT, telecom, and banking and finance* Explore how to design data architecture to gain the best advantage from stream processing* Get an overview of Flink's capabilities and features, along with examples of how companies use Flink, including in production* Take a technical dive into Flink, and learn how it handles time and stateful computation* Examine how Flink processes both streaming (unbounded) and batch (bounded) data without sacrificing performance

Robert Axelrod is widely known for his groundbreaking work in game theory and complexity theory. He is a leader in applying computer modeling to social science problems. His book "The Evolution of Cooperation" has been hailed as a seminal contribution and has been translated into eight languages since its initial publication. The "Complexity of Cooperation" is a sequel to that landmark book. It collects seven essays, originally published in a broad range of journals, and adds an extensive new introduction to the collection, along with new prefaces to each essay and a useful new appendix of additional resources. Written in Axelrod's acclaimed, accessible style, this collection serves as an introductory text on complexity theory and computer modeling in the social sciences and as an overview of the current state of the art in the field.

The articles move beyond the basic paradigm of the Prisoner's Dilemma to study a rich set of issues, including how to cope with errors in perception or implementation, how norms emerge, and how new political actors and regions of shared culture can develop. They use the shared methodology of agent-based modeling, a powerful technique that specifies the rules of interaction between individuals and uses computer simulation to discover emergent properties of the social system. "The Complexity of Cooperation" is essential reading for all social scientists who are interested in issues of cooperation and complexity

Theoretical neuroscience provides a quantitative basis for describing what nervous systems do, determining how they function, and uncovering the general principles by which they operate. This text introduces the basic mathematical and computational methods of theoretical neuroscience and presents applications in a variety of areas including vision, sensory-motor integration, development, learning, and memory.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the relationship between sensory stimuli and neural responses, focusing on the representation of information by the spiking activity of neurons. Part II discusses the modeling of neurons and neural circuits on the basis of cellular and synaptic biophysics. Part III analyzes the role of plasticity in development and learning. An appendix covers the mathematical methods used, and exercises are available on the book's Web site.

Unity brings you ever closer to the "author once, deploy anywhere" dream. With its multiplatform capabilities, you can target desktop, web, mobile devices, and consoles using a single development engine. Little wonder that Unity has quickly become the #1 game engine out there. Mastering Unity is absolutely essential in an increasingly competitive games market where agility is expected, yet until now practical tutorials were nearly impossible to find. Creating Games with Unity and Maya gives you with an end-to-end solution for Unity game development with Maya. Written by a twelve-year veteran of the 3D animation and games industry and professor of 3D animation, this book takes you step-by-step through the process of developing an entire game from scratch-including coding, art, production, and deployment. This accessible guide provides a "non-programmer" entry point to the world of game creation. Aspiring developers with little or no coding experience will learn character development in Maya, scripts, GUI interface, and first- and third-person interactions.