Morgan Kaufmann Jim Blinn's Corner: Notation, Notation, Notation (Jim Blinn's Corner Series)

The third entry in the Jim Blinn's Corner series, this is, like the others, a handy compilation of selected installments of his influential column. But here, for the first time, you get the "Director's Cut" of the articles: revised, expanded, and enhanced versions of the originals. What's changed? Improved mathematical notation, more diagrams, new solutions. What remains the same? All the things you've come to rely on: straight answers, irreverent style, and innovative thinking. This is Jim Blinn at his best now even better. Highlights - Features 21 expanded and updated installments of "Jim Blinn's Corner", dating from 1995 to 2001, and never before published in book form. - Includes "deleted scenes" tangential explorations that didn't make it into the original columns. - Details how Blinn represented planets in his famous JPL flyby animations. - Explores a wide variety of other topics, from the concrete to the theoretical: assembly language optimization for parallel processors, exotic usage of C++ template instantiation, algebraic geometry, a graphical notation for tensor contraction, and his hopes for a future world.