Whether you use a high-level API or you prefer to roll your own,
it pays to know how things work. These books give you the low-down
on low-level programming, and may inspire you to try algorithms
you would not have thought of otherwise.
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Graphics Programming Black Book
Michael Abrash
Everybody loves Michael Abrash. Some people seem to think he's
a god or something. I'm not sure why. I think he's kind of
goofy. This big (really big!) book contains all the information
in all his other books, plus some new stuff. So if you already
have some books by Michael Abrash, and you like redundancy, buy
this one. Heck, buy it twice.
Graphics Programming Black Book
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Zen of Graphics Programming
Michael Abrash
This book is a classic, but I like it because Michael mentions me
in Chapter 32. That's right! The goofy blond who claimed her husband
was writing Mode X code before Michael gave it a stupid name! That
was me!
Zen of Graphics Programming
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Computer Graphics Principles and Practice
James Foley, Andries van Dam, Steven Feiner, John Hughes
If you thought Michael Abrash is the only one who writes classic
graphics books, think again. Before there was Abrash there were
Foley and van Dam. This hefty tome of ancient wisdom is not for the
faint-hearted. If you don't know what a "tome" is, forget it.
Computer Graphics Principles and Practice
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Graphics Gems
Paul Heckbert
This is a collection of articles on graphics programming. Whenever
I look in this book for something specific, I usually find something
else that's interesting.
Graphics Gems
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Supercharged Bitmapped Graphics
Steve Rimmer
Steve Rimmer is a great guy. Besides writing cool programming
books, he writes lots of really useful software, like the GIF
Construction Set and Graphics Workshop for Windows. He also
writes awesome fiction. This book is a classic.
Supercharged Bitmapped Graphics
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JPEG Still Image Data Compression Standard
William B. Pennebaker Joan L. Mitchell
If you want to know everything there is to know about JPEG
files, this is the book for you. Ted says when things cool
down around here, he is going to spend a long time with this
book. This one is heavy-duty, not for dilettantes.
JPEG Still Image Data Compression Standard
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Graphics File Formats
David C. Kay & John R. Levine
The 30 most important file formats, including MPEG, JPEG, GIF,
TIFF, BMP, and FLI. A nice clear overview. A good book, and
not as expensive as the next one.
Graphics File Formats
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Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
James D. Murray and William VanRyper
Another big fat book. Contains cookbook instructions for GIF,
JPEG, Quicktime, PNG, RLE, just about every file format you can
think of (and many you can't). A complete reference.
Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats
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The Data Compression Book
Mark Nelson and Jean-Loup Gailly
I met Mark and Jean-Loup when they were putting together the PNG
format. This book contains lots of goodies on such things as
Huffman coding and LZ compression. This is not really a graphics
book, but it has graphics applications. It contains a nice
introduction to JPEG compression.
The Data Compression Book
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