Ordered my new Graphics textbooks

I am going to learn a bunch of stuff for my upcoming Graphics class while on work term, so I bought all the books I need in advance so I can get started and learn this stuff early. I am so excited for this class next summer and I am going to prepare for it well in advance so I can work extra hard and learn as much as possible.

I bought "Physically Based Rendering" by Matt Pharr and "Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping" by Henrik Wann Jensen. Our textbook is "Computer Graphics with OpenGL (3rd Edition)" by Donald Hearn and M. Pauline Baker, but I am waiting to get a better deal on that book before I pick that up. Also I will need the OpenGL Red Book but I am not sure yet which version we will be using for the class. I am excited to do some extra lighting algorithms (as you can see from my book choices), and I think some caustics and global illumination with Photon Mapping would be a really exciting addition to my Raytracer for my Graphics class.

There is a pretty interesting looking textbook about Procedural Texture development called "Texturing & Modeling: A Procedural Approach", and I was given a recommendation for this book so I might take a look at that too if I am interested in more texture algorithms. My friend Matt told me that the Photon Mapping book was very helpful and I have had some good recommendations for Physically Based Rendering so I think these were good book choices.

Well this is all very exciting as I will be spending some time in the evenings next work term learning some material for my Graphics course and also reading these textbooks for fun, hehe. I am really psyched to learn all of this stuff and I think it is going to be amazingly interesting.

I should probably review my Linear Algebra too while I am at it... probably that's a good idea. :) I remember visiting the Graphics Lab with my buddy Matt when we were in Grade 12 and we were interested in coming to Waterloo for Computer Science. We were so impressed and excited about the class even then, so you can imagine how excited I am now for this class. Oh man it is going to be awesome. I am pretty interested in starting some reading too... can't wait to start learning all this stuff.