I am reading this book alongside Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach by Frank D. Luna, and so far 3D Math Primer has really helped. It took me from a basic trigonometry/geometry/algebra to understanding the basics of the math described in Intro to DX9, I can't wait to get to the more complicated parts that explain the graphics pipeline. The things that Intro to DX9 took a page or so to explain 3D Math Primer is able to go into detail and explain well.

Great read

I needed a book to recommend to a friend whose offspring is trying his hand at game programming and needed some introductory maths to get going.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this book. The content, writing and layout are excellent and the level at which it deals with the various topics is just right. I also like much of their code and the implementation details which go with it. I can wholeheartedly recommend it for beginner developers.

The reason I didn't rate the book 100% is because there are a fair number of questionable opinions expressed by the writers. These are mostly based on their collective experience in game development and while I respect their expertise, I disagree with them on these points. A quick example. Their advice in Chapter 6, "Don't use information hiding" almost made me choke on my tea. The reasons they give for exposing their vector class data are simply bizarre. Encapsulation is one of the three pillars of object oriented development. This is not the place to discuss the dangers developers face by subverting this powerful idea, but I strongly urge beginner programmers to ignore the authors' advice on this point.

Despite these reservations, the book is a must-have for novice and intermediate programmers.

PS: I have now looked at the associated website gamemath.com. It contains solutions to exercises for Chapter 1 to 11 and a note "Other chapters coming soon...". The book was published in 2002. Not impressed at all!!!

I needed a book to recommend to a friend whose offspring is trying his hand at game programming and needs some introductory maths to get going.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this book. The content, writing and layout are excellent and the level at which it deals with the various topics is just right. I also like much of their code and the implementation details which go with it. I can wholeheartedly recommend it for beginner developers.

The reason I didn't rate the book 100% is because there are a fair number of questionable opinions expressed by the writers. These are mostly based on their collective experience in game development and while I respect their expertise, I disagree with them on these points. A quick example. Their advice in Chapter 6, "Don't use information hiding" almost made me choke on my tea. The reasons they give for exposing their vector class data are simply bizarre. Encapsulation is one of the three pillars of object oriented development. This is not the place to discuss the dangers developers face by subverting this powerful idea, but I strongly urge beginner programmers to ignore the authors advice on this point.

Despite these reservations, the book is a must-have for novice and intermediate programmers.

I picked up this book and within a week I was working on my own 3d engine. The explanations are very clear. This book is great for ANYONE. This is the book you are looking for!

The greatest problem for a lot of us that want to be great programmers is that we're terrible mathematicians. And the greatest benefit of this book is that it explains it in a way anyone can understand it! I absolutely love this book. Before you even start to think about DirectX, OpenGL, whatever - you should read this book COVER TO COVER.

This is a must read for anyone wanting to jump into 3D graphics programming, the book is full of content, full of useful source code, and very accessible to the average reader.
The only gripe I would have is that there is a steep learning curve a few chapters in, once you finish writing the vector class the content in the next chapter is much harder. It's not impossible to pick up, but there is a definite difference in difficulty.

Hi, i am a college student at Bozeman, Montana, MSU. If you do not know, the computer science course in Montana (of all places) is in the highest Tier in the nation. (That means our school competes with MIT). I can tell that this book is great. Sure there are some funny things about it, but for the most part, everything is good in this book. I really like how much stuff is covered on matrices. Not everyone gets to take Matrix Theory (Linear algebra) so this book does a decent job of explaining matrices. And especially explaining Quaternions.

Didnt learned too much from it, the explanations are very briefly specially in some chapters

For example, in the Collision Detection chapter (aka Geometric Tests, Chapter 13), he just throws the equations and miss important points to the complete understanding of the solution for the problem.

For example, in the explanation of Intersection of Ray and Plane, he just says that the parametric ray is p(t) = Po + td and the plane equation is p . n = d, then you need to solve (Po + td) . n = d, and the explanation is just it

He doesnt explain why a plane is defined by p . n = d, and why the dot product of all points in the plane and the plane normal will give the same number, and doesnt even explaning the meaning of that number (which is the plane distance from the origin along the normal, or in other words, the closest point in a plane to the origin)

All the others geometric tests explanations are made in the same way, he just throw the equations and some picture and you have to find out yourself. I was only able to understand the chapter cause i already had a good understanding of that subject, but for that guy with zero knowledge in the subject who bought this book for the first time imagining it would be a good introduction for geometric tests, he will have a hard time

Others chapters are the same way too, for example, i was hoping to understand barycentric coordinates from this book, but as always, he just throw you some equations

Maybe i misjudge the book, but thats my impression so far

If money is not your problem, buy it, but dont expect it to be your ultimate source for your doubts, you will probably have to look in another sources

great book for learning 3D math, probably the best on 3D math. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because author rushed through some of the topics. Overall, great book.

The book is the best 3D math book i have readen. The 3D math concepts explained simply and intelligibly. WARNING! You should know algebra, trigonometry to be able to read the book fluently! The absent one star is for: The book is independent of a well-known graphic API such as DirectX and OpenGL. The codes are standard c++ codes. Someone can like this, but me NOT. In my opinion, the 3D Math books for game development should select a proper graphic API and explain the concepts with these codes clearly. Because the real-world practise with knowledge is more stronger then just knowledge!

Im programming a flash 3D engine from scratch. I dont use most of the concepts in this book, but I do need to understand whats going on. Trigonometry, vectors, points, matrices, operations, eulers, etc. and this book has been really helpful covering that.

Other books in the subject go straight to more complex issues skipping the contents from this book, so this is a must have unless you have a strong base already.

I hadn't seen much math or geometry since high school, but this book does a great job at easing you into the underlying concepts of some pretty heavy stuff. I tried to wade through the CG "bibles" ("Real Time Rendering", "Principles of Computer Graphics in C") and quickly realized that if you're not either a CG major in college or an experienced CG pro, those books are like being in heavy seas without a life vest. (It really makes you appreciate what's involved in making those Pixar movies!)

Anyway, what I like about this book is that it explains everything first in fairly simple mathematical terms, deriving equations and proofs as it goes, and then illustrates to you visually exactly what is happening.

The majority of the material is conceptual. This is not a coding book from which you can pull easy answers. The code samples are in C++ and are confined to a few special chapters, and are really included as a programmatic interpretation of those concepts.

If you're already a CG pro, don't bother. You probably know all the info herein from the top of your head, as well as having one of those other "bibles" on your desk! But for a RAD programmer who needs a quick handle on some of the underlying concepts, this is the book!

Thanks Fletcher & Ian!

I have read and studied this book up through the end of Chapter 9 (More on Matrices) so far. My overall impression is that this is a good book and you will learn from it; however, I do have suggestions.

(1) Each chapter ends with exercises. There ought to be a section at the end of the book for the exercise solutions.

(2) The explanation of projecting one vector onto another on page 61 in Chapter 5 is poor. Also, the notation the authors use is awkward. If you would like to see a much better explanation of this topic see, "Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics," chapter 1, page 19 (the mathematics book is a tougher read but is definitely a good second source).

(3) Chapter 7 is titled, "Introduction to Matrices" which is well explained but leaves the reader wondering, "How on Earth are these tables of numbers useful and how are they used?!" The first paragraph states, "... they are primarily used to describe the relationship between two coordinate spaces." That's nice but nearly a complete waste of ink. That would be like going to a car dealership where the car you want to see is on the back lot but before you can go see it the salesman hands you a brochure that contains nothing but tables of numbers that mathematically describe the shape of the car. He says, "Hey, check out this baby!" And you say, "Duh! Just SHOW ME the car please!" Give us a short concise example -- a visual please and then tell us how it works.

(4) Chapter 9.3, Orthogonal Matrices, contains this statement, "... orthogonal matrices arise so frequently in practice in 3D graphics." But the authors do not provide an example. You would think that if it were such a frequent occurrence that it would merit an example.

If I had it to do over again I would purchase this book. There are no perfect books but between this book, the other one that I mentioned above, and Google, you should do well.

I'm about 2/3 through this book now, and I've found it very helpful. The explanations are good, and what I particularly like is how he illustrates most of the topics with pictures and graphs, explaining the relevance to rendering graphics in games. Unlike most math books and courses I've taken, I'm not left wondering "what the heck relevance does THIS have?" every time I turn a page. He also does provide C++ code game graphics rendering at the end of most topics. The code is very useful, and well explained. I can definitely see myself using some of it in future projects.

I don't want to kid anyone though, this material is complicated, and if you struggle with math, or don't have a math background (some advanced high school classes or college math) then you may find this book a bit much.

The first time I tried to read this book, I took frequent breaks and only made it to about chapter 10, not really understanding a few of the proofs and algorithms. However, after going through the entire book all at once in about a week, I was able to understand everything. It was definately worth it.

The book assumes no prior knowledge of linear algebra, and teaches you from the ground up the critical concepts behind 3d engines. At the end of the book, I was able to write my own software engine implementing many of the concepts talked about in the text, having absolutely no prior knowledge of any of the concepts before.

Knowledge of the concepts presented in this book are absolutely critical to you being able to understand and use graphics apis such as direct x. This book will demystify what goes on inside a 3d engine, and will clearly detail to you the steps required to render a scene. Of course, it can't teach you everything, but by the time you have read it you will have a good working knowledge of what it takes to write a decent 3d engine. Definately worth it - you've got to know this material eventually, and this book is a good choice.

Not an easy read. I thought of myself as being an intermediate level mathematician - leaning slightly towards the novice, but this was beyond my expectations. After the first few chapters on Vectors, getting into Matrices he lost me. Even some of the vector math lost me. Sure, if I want to find the cross product of two 3d vectors I can do it, I'd just go look up his source code, but *why* it works exactly? Don't know.

I don't think the examples were quite clear enough. I would have preferred a much more thorough explanation of what the author was doing throughout most of his work (proofs, examples, just about everything).

If you have a pretty good background / understanding of linear algebra, go ahead and get this book, you'll probably learn a lot - the author definitely knows what he's talking about - he's just not the greatest at explaining it.

The item was shipped promptly and was in very good condition. I'm very pleased.

I bought this book with another to try and learn linear algebra (and linear transformations) from scratch. This book is not good for that, since it omits key concepts here and there that would facilitate the learning process. For example, they present a formula that is to be used to derive a matrix for a rotation around an arbitrary axis. It made no sense to me, since they omitted the fact that they were using the vectors in that equation as basis vectors.

So, I am learning the math now from the other book (that teaches it from the OPENGL coordinate system) and will go back to this book to help me see those concepts for the DirectX view.

The people that rated this book highly, must have already learned linear algebra elsewhere and just need a refresher, or have genius level IQs (I do not). I need things clearly explained, not assumed.

Since the purported purpose of the book is to teach the math, and there are others that teach DirectX and assume you know the math, I am only giving this 3 stars. See my other reviews for the best math books.

The book is meant for Introductory to Intermediate audiences, but some of the chapters makes too many assumptions that you have background in the topic. Take the chapter on Vector, for example, it dives right into vectors without telling you how vectors are derived. Moreover, I believe the author takes a very lazy approach to his examples. He offers very little illustrations and explanations to demonstrate the problem. When he does offer it, he tends to skip a number steps before arriving at the answer. I do not recommend this book for Beginners; perhaps Intermediate users may find it more informative. Too bad Amazon does not reimburse for shipping returns; otherwise, it will be awaiting at their front door.

The book explains vectors and matrix math very well.
It helps you create a good matrix classes and vector classes.

But other than that it does not show how to apply the knowledge to create a 3D engine. It mostly just covers the math, which it does very well. If the scope was only math and not code then I would have given it 5 stars but it says on the front page of the book:

"Put mathematical theory into practice with working C++ classes....".

And it does give you an idea of how to do things. It just does not help you tie it all together. But few books cover everything, so its still a very good buy.

This book is a rare find. Many advanced math texts suffer from unclear prose or use cryptic symbols, but not this one. What you'll find are clear and well written explanations of each 3d math topic, followed by illustrative pictures and easy to read formulas. Highly recommended, especially as a starting point for learning 3d math.

If you are taking Linear Algebra in college, you know that most of the available textbooks are a little short on practical details and examples of how vectors and matrices will matter to you later on in your programming career. This book provides excellent pictures, diagrams and explanations on the basics of how you can put your Linear Algebra knowlege to work. You don't need to be interested in game development to benefit from the clear and very readable presentation that this book provides. Thank you Fletcher Dunn and Ian Parberry - for the outstanding work.

For a long time I wanted to learn 3D programming, but the only options available to teach myself the core mathematics were Appendix A's in Direct3D Programming books or buying three or four Linear Algebra textbooks for college courses and hope that one of them would explain things in terms of 3D and not just "boxes of numbers."
But the 3D Math Primer was exactly what was needed to provide that gap--and even be readable! Just going through the first 11 chapters I was able to create my own spinning cube application that used no 3D libraries whatsoever. =D Previous to this, a dutifully followed Direct3D tutorial had once gotten me a spinning triangle but I can't honestly admit to having any idea what I had done to achieve it.

There are sections where mathematical topics are presented simply as "interesting things you can do with these boxes of numbers to get whole new boxes of numbers" which hopefully will be given some more 3D filling out in future editions. But I wouldn't recommend waiting as this is already an invaluable resource to anyone who hopes to teach himself 3D programming.

This book is very nice. I have not read it all the way, but it starts with a quick refresher on basics, then starts you learning 2D math and brings it into to 3D math. It has a lot of equations and math, but also examples of how to code them in c++ also.

This book is a great choice to get your math up to scratch for programming any 3D graphics/game project.

I RECENTLY RETIRED AND DECIDED TO PLAY AROUND WITH GRAPHICS AND GAME PROGRAMMING, AND THIS BOOK IS JUST PLAIN EXCELLENT!!!!!. I WISH MORE AUTHORS COULD WRITE TECH SUBJECTS THIS WELL.

THANK YOU FLETCHER DUNN AND IAN PARBERRY!!!

this book assume your beginner in that filed .
authors covers alot of topics in math and its application in a clear style with pictures,examples and finally code !.
i recommend this book for beginners in game programming .

Ahmed Saleh , Computer Graphics Programmer .

I need to create a 3d math library for a project I was working on and wanted to take a look at some book on the subject. This one looked like one of the 14 year old 'how to make a video game' type books and I wasn't expecting much, however I was pleasantly suprised by the depth of the 3d mathematics in the book.
As an example i was unclear about how to calculate the inverse matrix correctly for an n-dimension matrix and the book goes over calculating adjucts and determinats, and inverses for a n-dimensional matrix both supplying the general math and some C code. The code i didn't find helpful, simply because I coding in the python c api and not straight c, however it could be helpful to someone writing in C.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking to brush up on quaternions, eulers, matrices, and vectors as this book is simple and to the point. I think the author did a great job balancing the complexty of the math with simplicity in the book's text. The book goes over what is really the essentials of any 3d math library.

The authors state early on that this book is intended as the first book an aspiring game programmer should read, and I would agree that for the most part it lives up to that goal. Many 3D game programming books include math primers covering a chapter or two, but really, 3D math is a huge topic deserving an entire volume. This book provides a great service, then, in that it thoroughly covers most of the basic topics that graphics programmers need to know, in a tutorial style that should be accessible to all beginners. Hopefully, we'll start to see more game programming books that focus on their core material and defer coverage of 3D math to books like this one rather than trying to pack unavoidably incomplete coverage into a few dozen pages.

So, what exactly does it cover? It starts off with a couple of chapters on coordinate systems, and then spends three chapters on vectors, followed by another three chapters on matrices and transformations. It then covers orientation, comparing matrix, Euler angle, and quaternion representations (including one of most clear explanations of quaternions that I've encountered), before diving into several chapters covering geometric primitives, including detailed coverage of working with triangle meshes.

The book closes with a chapter applying 3D math to graphics in areas such as lighting, fog, coordinates spaces, LOD, culling and clipping, and so on, and another chapter on visibility determination, touching on things like quad- and octrees, BSP trees, PVS, and portal techniques. The explanations in these chapters are much less complete, taking more of an overview approach. Others have criticized the book for this, but I feel that an overview is appropriate, since it then sets the stage for these topics to be covered in detail in other game programming books.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone just getting started with game and graphics programming.

i will not be able to praise this book more than the others did already . this book made love linear algebra ,its really very well written
i even recomend it for people like mathematics or want to learn linear algebra and not really necessary to be game developer .
to taste a bit from the honey in this book download a chapter from this book and enjoy.
[website]

I think this book is one of the best books I've purchased on programming. It covers everything in detail, and really helps things make sense. It's especially good for someone who can program and knows a 3D API already(like me). It also requires no more than high school algebra (which is excellent because I'm 14). The only thing it lacked was triangle to triangle collision detection and collision response, but that is perhaps beyond the scope of the book.

I bought this book with 'NO' experience in game programming or 3d math. I guess you could have called me a 'pre-beginner' if that says anything. I have tried to learn 3d programming from reading other books on this topic and found myself getting confused before finishing the first couple of pages. This book came to my house and I began reading chapter 1, before I knew it I was on chapter 5 (2 hours later) and knew a good bit about Vectors, Matrices, 3d Coordinate systems and the such. I have always been a firm believer in reference books to use as I learn rather than getting the step-by-step books. I am not one to read a book from front to back, but this book has really been an exception. I would recommend this book to ANYBODY who wants to learn 3d game programming. It is an easy read and really shows how easy the concepts are once you get the algorigthms down. I am now on chapter 10 and plan on reading more tonight. :) I can't wait to be done with it and start applying the code in this book... Thanks Fletcher Dunn!

This book does an excellent job in the first several chapters covering basic Vector and Matrix topics, and does an admirable job and making them simple to understand. For a beginner in Matrix Algebra or 3D game/graphic programmer, this book can really get you started on the right foot.

HOWEVER...Too many of the later chapters do not cover the topics in the detail they deserve, and instead full listings of code are shown. Whilst the code is important to be able to see how things work, the entire listing could have been put on a CD in on the GameMath website (which is also quite poor), and just the function or two being focused on be displayed in the text.

Some explanations were also a little iffy -- In one example, the authors attempt to describe converting from Object to World space -- and give an example of how to do so and what needs to be done. The example is given with a series of graphics and short descriptions. (Rotate to the axis, the translate...) This method of describing the conversion is really more confusion than it needs to be. They may have been attempting to oversimplify, because the straight forward description is really not difficult -- multiply the Object's vertices by the Translation and Rotation matrix.

Overall, a good book to get started in certain topics, and coupled with Real Time Rendering (2nd Ed.) to cover more information and fill in holes, understanding the material is fairly straight forward.

I bought Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics and this book hoping to learn the basics of 3D for game development. I wanted a book to really help me to understand -not only know- the principles behind 3D development.

I found that Mathematics for 3D Game Programming & Computer Graphics was a "copy and paste" of parts of a linear algebra textbook. It had the interesting parts for graphics developers, but it did nothing in terms of reaching / teaching the reader, explaining things and helping to smooth the learning curve. It was pure math.

Well, 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development it's just the opposite. It's clear, concise and mathematical rigorous, but at the same time it tries to reach the reader, explains the math of 3D graphics AND the reasons behind that math. Whenever possible it always gives you a graphic interpretation of what you are reading and if that's not possible, it gives you extra explanations. The authors know where the hard parts are and excel at helping you to understand them. Where most books give you a theorem and left you in your own (face it: most books) this one tries to help you to get a step beyond and understand the math and the workings of it.

There is a clear feeling in all the book: usefulness.

This book -in terms of smoothing the learning curve- is to current basic 3D math what Realtime Rendering is to current 3D algorithms and techniques.

The bad:

1. It's very basic. Don't expect to go from 0 to 100 with this book. It will give you the basics, but you will need to continue.
2. It's not mean to give you full working code. The code examples are to illustrate how the concepts can be implemented in software, not to provide a full working library.

To sum it up: a book to understand, not just "know" the math behind 3D math written in a clear and non-pretentious way.

The source code on the site is incomplete. When they're ready to provide the full source promised in the book, then it may be worth a look. Wrote the author to find out about the missing source. Not surprisingly he didn't respond. Pass.

Well I must say that the book was very well written overall. I'll get to the reasons why I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 shortly.

First, it is my opinion that you need to know the following before you even get started with this book to get the most out of it. You should know at least algebra level math, preferrably at a college level. While the book states you don't need to know trig, I believe it will help you if you do know at least some trig. Finally you should obviously know C++ fairly well, the book heavily leans towards C++, but if you understand the material in the book well enough you shouldn't have too much problems porting it to another language.

Some of the major topics covered in the book from beginning to end are the cartesian coordinate system, vectors, matrices, euler angles, quaterions, geometric primitives, geometrics tests (i.e. intersection tests), triangle meshes, lighting equations and visibility determination. Plus an appendix that covers some trigonometry.

Ok, the good news. I believe about first 3/4's of the book are top notch. The authors went to extreme lengths to cover the material with very clear and concise explanations of the math topics that are covered and have plenty of pictures to help you understand it. The chapters that cover vectors and matrices made it very clear to me why and how this stuff is used in 3d graphics. The authors also consider the pros and cons of using matrixes, euler angles and quaterions in depth. And at the end most of the chapters are some exercises that help reinforce the material. It's just great stuff!

Now the bad news. I feel the last quater of the book had a very rushed feel to it. The topics in those sections just don't meet up to the level of first 3/4's of the book. Topics are skimmed over or just summarily introduced and most of the time you get 'This is beyond the scope of this book, etc..'. Now I understand that most of those topics are beyond the scope of the book but I guess that I got used to the excellent reading of the earlier chapters so I ended up feeling somewhat dissapointed by the remaining ones. But on a positive note they do supply other resources you can look to in the bibliography. One last gripe that I have is they only supply the answers to the exercises up to chapter 7 on their website, they need the answers to the remaining chapters. Those are the reasons why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5.

Finally, I do highly recommend this book if you interested in learning about 3D programming and it will lay a good foundation for you to move onto other 3D programming books. The positives far outweighs the negatives so it's a great place to start your exploration into the world of 3D graphics!

This book *IS* definitely geered towards the beginner, and only assumes a basic knowledge of trigonometry. Indeed, the first few chapters seems to fulfill this well with its easy-flowing text and background info on graphics. Unfortunately, the later chapters look (Starting from the chapter on Quaternions/Euler angles and going until the end of the book) like they were quite rushed which was disappointing considering the nice flow of the previous chapters.
Also, if you're looking for code snippets, DON'T LOOK HERE! No CD and the website looks thrown together AND INCOMPLETE (without any source-code!) like the later chapters of this book. See for yourself and you decide... I certainly hope Mr. Dunn doesn't release software the way he releases books!
All in all, I gave it 3 stars because it still contains a lot of useful info for a beginner and is a nice review for someone who hasn't seen this stuff in a while.

The explaination is simple and easy to understand. Moreover, the author try to let reader to understand how to apply 3D maths in programming. And at the rear of the book, he explains why there is no companion CD : "Rather than a companion CD, this book has a web site, [URL], which features : .... Code presented in the book...". However, if you enter [URL], there is no code but having "The code from the book. Coming soon... " and "Small demo game, which uses the code from the book. Coming soon...". What a responsible author !!!

This book does a fantastic job of starting out with the basics. It doesn't assume you already know 3D math. I had to re-read a couple parts to make sure I understood what was being taught, however this was due to the nature of the difficult subject, and not because it was poorly written. The book is very well written.

While this book starts out with the basics, it does move into more advanced topics, but because it does such a good job of giving you a solid foundation at the beginning, you are able keep up.

The code samples are excellent as well. They don't get so complicated that you can't understand it...and they help to reinforce how to actually implement a vector, matrix etc. in C.

Thanks to authors for writing a book that a person with very little 3D math experience can pick up and actually get through. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about 3D math...whether you are a beginner or advanced.

If you are even slightly interested in 3D math and computer graphics or game programming, I would pick this book up for sure. It is the best book I have found yet on the subject.

When I first heard of this book I was skeptical because of the math because most books take for granted that you are a math wiz. But this book not only explains the theory but also the concepts behind the math and code.

For any one wanting to get into game graphics and game development I HIGHELY recommend this book Fletch and Ian knows how to teach and hope they continue to teach young padawan learners like me by making thoroughly well made books like this.

EVERYONE MUST GET IT!!!!!!!

This is one of the best books that I have read for 3d math. It thouroughly explains math concepts in geometry trig and coding. At first I was skeptical with this book because most books take for granted that you know math concepts but this one explains it in detail.

I hope Fletch and Ian keep teaching young padawan learners of gaming like myself by making more books like this.

This book is a GEM and a must have!!

This book fills a gap in the game developer books. The other books introduce 3D matrix math and then stop. This book takes the next couple of steps and puts all the concepts in one well organized place. There are exercises and a vast number of pictures to help visualize what is going on. If you read one book on 3D math, this should be the one.

I like the book's price as well. It is a good value.

Our goal in writing this book was not to cover as many topics as possible, like some other books, but rather to hit the most important concepts thoroughly. If you are a beginner, or have some "holes" in your understanding of matrices, Euler angles, left-handed vs. right-handed coordinate spaces, or key graphics concepts like zoom or the lighting equation, this book is for you.

A feature of this book over other books is the extent to which we have tried to develop the reader's geometric intuition, rather than just presenting numbers and equations. We show what the geometric interpretation of each mathematical operation is, why you would ever use that operation, and, in many cases, how the equation was derived in the first place. We do not gloss over "minor details" such as row vectors versus column vectors, or left- versus right-handed coordinate spaces. These "minor details" make all the difference in the world when you are trying to use an equation out of a book.

For the more advanced reader, we offer some of the clearest and complete discussions of some more advanced topics such as quaternions and barycentric coordinates. The book can be used as a reference for many important vector and matrix operations and identities. It also has a toolkit of many important equations for geometric primitives and intersection tests.

Our focus is on theory, so the book is not a big code dump like many books. The code we have provided consists primarily of "utility" classes for vectors, quaternions, and matrices. I think you will find that our code is simpler to read and understand than most code you will find elsewhere. We also offer some unique and thoughtful advice on good class design, specifically targetted to classes for doing 3D math and getting it right the first time, without twiddling minus signs or swapping numbers experimentally until it looks right