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Books on Mma graphics

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg1134] Books on Mma graphics
  • From: Xah Y Lee <xyl10060 at fhda.edu>
  • Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 03:09:16 -0400

Just want to share my views on two books.

I've read Cameron Smith & Nancy Blachman's The Mathematica Graphics
Guidebook. It's absolutely an excellent book. I'd say it is the
 definitive manual on mma graphics, not just a guide book.

I just bought Tom Wickham-Jone's Mma Graphics yesterday, looks like it's
an excellent book too. The difference between the two books is conveyed by 
their title.

 Cameron&Nancy's more like a manual covering/reporting mma 
graphics engine in detail. The contents of the book are: 
 1: The Design of Mma graphics commands,
 2: (mma graphic) Data types,
 3: Graphics Primitives and Directives. 
 4: Commands for Producing Graphics. 
 5: Graphics Packages. 
 6: Coordinate systems (used in  graphics) 
 7: Options.

The exposition is extremely clear. If you program with mma graphics,
 you should have this book. 

Tom's book I think have the flavor of a tutorial. It is structured much like 
Wolfram's The Mma book. Part one is for beginners on how to use built-in 
graphic functions. Part II is the fundamentals of grphics programming. 
Part III is more for advanced readers, on how to exploit mma graphic 
capability. Including codes and explainations on how to extend mma 
graphic capabilities. For examples, labering contour heights, doing 
geometry with mma. Many of us semi-experts would find this part extremely 
enlightening. Part IV is a reference to mma Graphics.

Overall, Tom's book contain many programming examples with 
explainations on how they work. I recommend it as well. 

(The two books overlab little. It's worth to get both)

 Xah Lee             permament email: 74631.731 at compuserve.com
Quote of the day:
Top spies all, inside override.
NothingGP none, empty braces fine.
If conflic arise, latter take place.
 --mnemonic for how graphic primitives/directives behave 
inside Show[] (Copyright 1995 by Xah Lee) (no kidding!)



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