Overview
Get a focused introduction to programming 3D graphics with the Windows Presentation Foundation 3D API. Complementing his book Applications = Code + Markup, award-winning author Charles Petzold builds on XAML essentials, teaching you how to display and animate 3D graphics under the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista. You’ll get expert guidance and code samples in XAML and Microsoft Visual C#— helping you master the skills you need to create high-fidelity user interfaces.
Discover how to:
- Define complex 3D objects with triangle meshes
- Enhance the illumination of 3D surfaces with light and shading effects
- Color 3D figures with gradients, bitmaps, and drawings
- Add animation with transforms and vertex manipulation
- Represent linear, affine, and camera transforms by using matrices
- Calculate vector angles, angles of rotation, and axes of rotation
- Generate triangle meshes efficiently by using C# code
- Express rotation by using quaternion computation
- Provide a user interface for manipulating and drawing 3D figures
PLUS—Get Visual C# and XAML code samples on the Web
Synopsis
Get a focused introduction to programming 3D graphics with the Windows Presentation Foundation 3D API. Complementing his book Applications = Code + Markup, award-winning author Charles Petzold builds on XAML essentials, teaching you how to display and animate 3D graphics under the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista. You’ll get expert guidance and code samples in XAML and Microsoft Visual C#— helping you master the skills you need to create high-fidelity user interfaces.
Discover how to:
- Define complex 3D objects with triangle meshes
- Enhance the illumination of 3D surfaces with light and shading effects
- Color 3D figures with gradients, bitmaps, and drawings
- Add animation with transforms and vertex manipulation
- Represent linear, affine, and camera transforms by using matrices
- Calculate vector angles, angles of rotation, and axes of rotation
- Generate triangle meshes efficiently by using C# code
- Express rotation by using quaternion computation
- Provide a user interface for manipulating and drawing 3D figures
PLUS—Get Visual C# and XAML code samples on the Web
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewBig news for anyone who wants to create better graphics and next-generation Windows user interfaces: The legendary Charles Petzold has written a book on Windows Presentation Foundation's remarkable 3D features.
Petzold wrote Programming Windows, the classic book on Windows development. When you read him, you always know he's thought carefully about every word: He hasn't glossed over the subtleties, and unlike some authors, he does understand them. That's especially welcome here, in an arena that'll be unfamiliar to many Windows programmers.
He walks through each core 3D graphics programming technique, showing how to do it in WPF -- usually with XAML, occasionally with C#. Coverage includes transforms, animation, rotation, light, shading, textures, materials, even matrix transforms and quaternions. Petzold wraps up with several example programs that illuminate WPF 3D's surprising power. This technology will be at the heart of tomorrow's immersive Windows applications. Master it now: Read Petzold. Bill Camarda, from the August 2007 Read Only