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While I was there I saw several new artists struggle with
the difficulty of learning computer graphics. The only book
that was available at the time was "Principles of Interactive
Computer Graphics" by Newman and Sproull. And though
that book did a great job for scientists and engineers, it
wasn't of much value to people who didn't want to write the
programs, but simply to use them.
For those who have worked in graphics for a while, the idea
of a "surface normal" or a "Phong-shaded polygon"
may be familiar ideas, but in the early 80's these terms might
as well have been in Sanskrit for all the meaning they conveyed
to artists.
I thought that there was a need for a book that communicated
the basic ideas of computer graphics without mathematics or
programming - a book that talked about the ideas, not
the implementation detais. Then someone could speak the language,
and start to learn how to create images and animations.
While an undergraduate in 1983 I wrote Computer Graphics
User's Guide. The book was published by Howard W. Sams.
Woo-hoo, my first book! A few months later it was translated
into Japanese. The Japanese publisher chose their own (strange)
image for the cover.
The book had a good life and reputation, but I wasn't maintaining
it in any active way. Then in 1988 I was approached by a publisher
who was interested in a second edition. Things had progressed
so far in just those few years that I knew a second edition
of CGUG wasn't going to do: we needed a whole new book.
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