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Morgan Kaufmann

Texturing and Modeling
A Procedural Approach
2nd Edition
August 19, 1998
David S. Ebert
English
Procedural rendering, modeling, shading and texturing are of growing importance in computer graphics and animation, and, to date, there is no other comprehensive book covering these topics. This book contains a toolbox of procedures upon which programmers can build a library of procedural textures and objects. It also includes extensive explanations of how these functions work, and how to design new functions. The revision includes updates to the core original text and an additional six chapters. These new chapters introduce and present to the graphics community the state of the art concerning the procedural approach. New chapters include: Cellular Texture Generation, volumetric Cloud Modeling with Implicit Functions, Interacting with Virtual Actors Rendering with Adaptive Level of Detail.
Relational Database Design Clearly Explained
1st Edition
August 13, 1998
Jan L. Harrington
English
The majority of database systems being installed today are based on the relational database model. Unfortunately, relational database design is one of the most misunderstood aspects of computing. Part of the problem comes from popular literature that describes a relational database as anything that has "relationships between files." And those who do understand that a relational database is really nothing more than a collection of two-dimensional tables are caught between good design and the performance of the database. They are often unaware of the side-effects of many of their poor design decisions.
BeOS
Porting UNIX Applications
1st Edition
August 10, 1998
Martin C. Brown
English
The BeOS is the exciting new operating system designed natively for the Internet and digital media. Programmers are drawn to the BeOS by its many state-of-the-art features, including pervasive multithreading, a symmetric multiprocessing architecture, and an integrated multithreaded graphics system. The Be engineering team also built in many UNIX-like capabilities as part of a POSIX toolkit. Best of all, the BeOS runs on a variety of Intel architectures and PowerPC platforms and uses off-the-shelf hardware.This book explores the BeOS from a POSIX programmer's point of view, providing a comprehensive and practical guide to porting UNIX and other POSIX-based software to the BeOS. BeOS: Porting UNIX Applications will help you move your favorite UNIX software to an environment designed from the ground up for high-performance applications.
Parallel Computer Architecture
A Hardware/Software Approach
1st Edition
August 1, 1998
David Culler + 2 more
English
The most exciting development in parallel computer architecture is the convergence of traditionally disparate approaches on a common machine structure. This book explains the forces behind this convergence of shared-memory, message-passing, data parallel, and data-driven computing architectures. It then examines the design issues that are critical to all parallel architecture across the full range of modern design, covering data access, communication performance, coordination of cooperative work, and correct implementation of useful semantics. It not only describes the hardware and software techniques for addressing each of these issues but also explores how these techniques interact in the same system. Examining architecture from an application-driven perspective, it provides comprehensive discussions of parallel programming for high performance and of workload-driven evaluation, based on understanding hardware-software interactions.
RADIUS
Image Understanding for Imagery Intelligence
1st Edition
July 29, 1998
Oscar Firschein + 1 more
English
Technical reports prepared for the DARPA Image Understanding Program
Switching in IP Networks
IP Switching, Tag Switching, and Related Technologies
1st Edition
July 14, 1998
Bruce S. Davie + 2 more
English
Label switching, an economical and efficient technique for message forwarding in IP networks, is fast becoming a widely deployed solution for improving performance, scalability, and functionality. Written by leading experts in the field, this guide explores the underlying technology of label switching and provides a detailed analysis and comparison of approaches developed by Ipsilon, Cisco, Toshiba, and IBM. It also compares label switching with conventional routing, culminating in a discussion of the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) standard now being developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETP).This book—the result of a rigorous review process by key designers—is an invaluable resource to network engineers and designers for evaluating the use of label switching in their own networks.
Building Intelligent Agents
An Apprenticeship, Multistrategy Learning Theory, Methodology, Tool and Case Studies
1st Edition
June 12, 1998
Gheorghe Tecuci
English
Building Intelligent Agents is unique in its comprehensive coverage of the subject. The first part of the book presents an original theory for building intelligent agents and a methodology and tool that implement the theory. The second part of the book presents complex and detailed case studies of building different types of agents: an educational assessment agent, a statistical analysis assessment and support agent, an engineering design assistant, and a virtual military commander. Also featured in this book is Disciple, a toolkit for building interactive agents which function in much the same way as a human apprentice. Disciple-based agents can reason both with incomplete information, but also with information that is potentially incorrect. This approach, in which the agent learns its behavior from its teacher, integrates many machine learning and knowledge acquisition techniques, taking advantage of their complementary strengths to compensate for each others weakness. As a consequence, it significantly reduces (or even eliminates) the involvement of a knowledge engineer in the process of building an intelligent agent.
A Complete Guide to DB2 Universal Database
1st Edition
June 1, 1998
Don Chamberlin
English
DB2 Universal Database (UDB) supports many different types of applications, on many different kinds of data, in many different software and hardware environments.This book provides a complete guide to DB2 UDB Version 5 in all its aspects, including the interfaces that support end users, application developers, and database administrators. It is complementary to the IBM product documentation, providing a clear and informal explanation of how the features of DB2 were intended to be used. It is an extensive revision of the author's earlier book, Using the New DB2: IBM's Object-Relational Database System.
Readings in Database Systems
3rd Edition
May 31, 1998
Michael Stonebraker + 1 more
English
Readings in Database Systems, 3rd Edition is the most up-to-date compilation of papers to explore DBMS applications which were first published in the now classic "Red Book" in 1988. Dr. Stonebraker and Dr. Hellerstein have selected a spectrum of papers on the roots of the field, which include classic papers from the '70's on the relational model to timely discourses on future directions. This new streamlined edition includes 46 papers that cover much of the significant research and development in the database field, organized by area of technology. Expert introductory analysis of each section topic of the book is provided by leaders of the DBMS field along with a discussion of each reading.From the Preface: "The main purpose of this collection is to present a technical context for research contributions and to make them accessible to anyone who is interested in database research. This book is intended as an introduction for students and professionals wanting an overview of the field. It is also designed to be a reference volume for anyone already active in database systems. This set of readings represents what we perceive to be the most important issues in the database area: the core material for any DBMS professional to study."
Jim Blinn's Corner: Dixty Pixels
1st Edition
May 1, 1998
Jim Blinn
English
"All problems in computer graphics can be solved with a matrix inversion."—Jim BlinnJim Blinn is Back!Dirty Pixels is Jim's second compendium of articles selected from his award-winning column, "Jim Blinn's Corner," in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. Here he addresses topics in image processing and pixel arithmetic and shares the tricks he's uncovered through years of experimentation.Writ... in the inimitable, engaging style for which he's famous, Jim's easy-to-understadn explanations and solutions make abstract concepts accessible to a broad audience. Dirty Pixels is an invaluable resource for anyone in the computer graphics field.Teapots and MoreJim's contributions to computer graphics include the Voyager Fly-by animations of space missions to Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus; The Mechanical Universe, a 52-part telecourse of animated physics; and the computer animation of Carl Sagan's PBS series Cosmos. Jim developed many graphics techniques now in widespread use, among them bump mapping, environment mapping, and blobby modeling.

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