Introduction

Abstract

Computer graphics algorithms are being increasingly used in many scientific and technological areas, with an explosive growth in applications requiring three-dimensional rendering and animation. The expansion of computer graphics into diverse and interdisciplinary areas is the result of many factors such as the ever increasing power and capability of the graphics hardware, decreasing hardware costs, availability of a wide range of software tools, research advancements in the field, and significant improvements in graphics application programming interface (API). Additionally, vast amounts of resources including images, 3D models, and libraries are now easily available to developers and researchers for their work. With the emergence of programmable graphics hardware, the power of graphics APIs to render complex models and scenes has greatly increased, and it has become easier to create faster and robust implementations of several advanced algorithms. Following these developments, there is also an increasing need for reference books that give an in-depth coverage of advanced methods that are fundamental to many application domains.