Product Description
3D CAD is one of the most important technologies of the 90sfor the engineering and manufacturing world. 3D CAD systemscan provide a competitive edge in the development of newproducts. This book presents the development of athree-dimensional CAD system and its wide rangeofapplications. It describes the concepts of solid models, andthe theory of curves and surfaces and it illustrates theseconcepts through "reals world" applications. ... Read more

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This volume provides an analysis and exposition of the theoretical bases for computer graphics and CAD in order to give our understanding and exploitation of them a more rigorous and comprehensive basis. This bridging of the gap between theory and practice in a systematic and detailed way is of great interest at the present time. The extensive and detailed reference material in this volume has not been published previously. The wide range of the material provides the reader with a standard reference book. ... Read more

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John Vince explains a wide range of mathematical techniques and problem-solving strategies associated with computer games, computer animation, virtual reality, CAD, and other areas of computer graphics.

Covering all the mathematical techniques required to resolve geometric problems and design computer programs for computer graphic applications, each chapter explores a specific mathematical topic prior to moving forward into the more advanced areas of matrix transforms, 3D curves and surface patches. Problem-solving techniques using vector analysis and geometric algebra are also discussed.

All the key areas are covered including: Numbers, Algebra, Trigonometry, Coordinate geometry, Transforms, Vectors, Curves and surfaces, Barycentric coordinates, Analytic geometry.

Plus – and unusually in a student textbook – a chapter on geometric algebra is included.

Customer Reviews (2)

Broad but cursory
This give a very broad overview of many topics from matrix transformations to analytic geometry, but in a paperback less than a half inch thick, the topics are only given a cursory introduction.

not a book to learn new material from
Vince takes you through what is hopefully a revision course on maths that you will need if you are going to program graphics. The topics include matrix algebra. (Of course.) This gives the essence of translation and scaling in a three dimensional space. Then analytic geometry and B splines are covered.

The book has no problem sets. Though it does have one chapter at the end devoted to sample problems with their answers. It is not a book to learn new material from. ... Read more

Product Description
Requirements engineering is a field of knowledge concerned withthe systematic process of eliciting, analyzing and modelingrequirements. Requirements engineering is usually understood inrelation to software system requirements, most of its principles andsome of its techniques can be adapted to other problems dealing withcomplex sets of requirements. The engineering vision indicates thatthis should be a practical and well-defined process where trade-offshave to be considered to obtain the best results. Mature softwaredevelopment needs mature requirements engineering. This was true tenyears ago when requirements engineering became an important componentof the software development process. It remains true today when thepressure to deliver code on time and on budget is increasing, and thedemand for higher quality software also increases.Perspectives On Software Requirements presents perspectives onseveral current approaches to software requirements. Each chapteraddresses a specific problem where the authors summarize theirexperiences and results to produce well-fit and traceablerequirements. Chapters highlight familiar issues with recent resultsand experiences, which are accompanied by chapters describingwell-tuned new methods for specific domains.Perspectives On Software Requirements is designed for aprofessional audience, composed of researchers and practitioners inindustry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text forgraduate-level students in computer science and engineering. ... Read more

Product Description
Symbolic Boolean manipulation using binary decision diagrams(BDDs) has been successfully applied to a wide variety of tasks,particularly in very large scale integration (VLSI) computer-aideddesign (CAD). The concept of decision graphs as an abstractrepresentation of Boolean functions dates back to the early work byLee and Akers. In the last ten years, BDDs have found widespread useas a concrete data structure for symbolic Boolean manipulation. WithBDDs, functions can be constructed, manipulated, and compared bysimple and efficient graph algorithms. Since Boolean functions canrepresent not just digital circuit functions, but also suchmathematical domains as sets and relations, a wide variety of CADproblems can be solved using BDDs. `Binary Decision Diagrams and Applications for VLSI CAD providesvaluable information for both those who are new to BDDs as well as tolong time aficionados.' --from the Foreword by Randal E. Bryant.`Over the past ten years ... BDDs have attracted the attention of manyresearchers because of their suitability for representing Booleanfunctions. They are now widely used in many practical VLSI CADsystems. ... this book can serve as an introduction to BDD techniquesand ... it presents several new ideas on BDDs and their applications.... many computer scientists and engineers will be interested in thisbook since Boolean function manipulation is a fundamental techniquenot only in digital system design but also in exploring variousproblems in computer science.' -- from the Preface by Shin-ichiMinato. ... Read more

Product Description
Since the early 1980s, CAD frameworks have received a greatdeal of attention, both in the research community and in thecommercial arena. It is generally agreed that CAD framework technologypromises much: advanced CAD frameworks can turn collections ofindividual tools into effective and user-friendly design environments.But how can this promise be fulfilled? CAD Frameworks: Principles and Architecture describes the designand construction of CAD frameworks. It presents principles forbuilding integrated design environments and shows how a CAD frameworkcan be based on these principles. It derives the architecture of a CADframework in a systematic way, using well-defined primitives forrepresentation. This architecture defines how the many differentframework sub-topics, ranging from concurrency control to design flowmanagement, relate to each other and come together into an overallsystem. The origin of this work is the research and development performed inthe context of the Nelsis CAD Framework, which has been a workingsystem for well over eight years, gaining functionality while evolvingfrom one release to the next. The principles and concepts presented inthis book have been field-tested in the Nelsis CAD Framework. CAD Frameworks: Principles and Architecture is primarilyintended for EDA professionals, both in industry and in academia, butis also valuable outside the domain of electronic design. Many of theprinciples and concepts presented are also applicable to otherdesign-oriented application domains, such as mechanical design orcomputer-aided software engineering (CASE). It is thus a valuablereference for all those involved in computer-aided design. ... Read more

Product Description
The term CAD Framework has come to mean all of theunderlying facilities provided to the CAD tool developer, theCAD system integrator and the end user (IC or systemdesigner) which are necessary to facilitate their tasks.
Broadly speaking, these three groups of people represent the users ofthe CAD Framework, each with their own needs and particular emphasis.Electronic CAD Frameworks presents a general discussion of themajor components of a CAD Framework and their relationships to oneanother. Each area is then presented in more detail. A brief review ofthe state-of-the-art and current directions for research is presented.Since the approach taken to the development and enhancement of CADframeworks has had more impact on their success or failure than anyparticular design decision, some observations on this topic areincluded in Chapter 9: Implementing a CAD Framework. Finally, theinfluence of related disciplines and the ongoing software standardsefforts on the area of CAD environments is reviewed.
... Read more

Product Description
This unified treatment of curve and surface design concepts is the Fourth Edition of the popular text, Curves and Surfaces for Computer-Aided Geometric Design, Third Edition (Academic Press, 1992). Assuming only a background in calculus and basic linear algebra, this revised and updated classic is highly accessible and should be of interest to a wide audience; from computer graphics hobbyists to software developers for CAD/CAM systems. The authors informal style makes this book very reader-friendly, and the IBM disk included in the back of the book will allow the user to gain first-hand experience with the concepts as they are explained.
This book focuses on Bezier and B-spline methods for curves, rational Bezier and B-spline curves, geometric continuity, spline interpolation, and Coons methods. In this Fourth Edition, the content has been thoroughly revised and updated to include a newchapter on recursive subdivision, new material on nonrectangular topology, surface faceting, stereo lithography, and new sections on triangulations and scattered data interpolants. The disk provided in the back of the book has also been updated to include all of the data sets and the C code used in the book.

Covers tensor product Bezier surfaces
Includes a chapter on recursive subdivisions
Incorporates new material on surface faceting, stereo lithography, and nonrectangular topology
Provides many C programs and data sets on the IBM disk included with the book ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Exquisite demonstration of how Applied and Theoretical Mathematics can work together
This is a beautifully illustrated use of the principles of differential geometry as it applies to practical manufacturing design problems.

The book demonstrates how any engineering drawings -- once only visualizable as "blocked out cubic shapes" (and formerly capable of being rendered into stamps and dies only via "French Curves") -- now can be easily transformed into the projections of three-dimensional parametric surfaces, where the points in the drawings are addressed individually as a triple of Euclidean coordinates on lines and surfaces in a mathematical vector space.

The author shows how an independent coordinate system, in an arbitrary vector space, is the correct language that lends itself best to mathematical explanation as well as to computer implementation of manufacturing design renderings.

Using the methodology of vector spaces, affine maps, andthe technique of "piecewise linear interpolation," he takes us step-by-step through the history of computer Aided Graphic Design (CAGD). A crescendo is reached in chapter three, where he introduces the surprisingly simple algorithm of de Casteljau (the acknowledged father of CAGD), and as the saying goes, "the rest is history." From there onwards, nothing is left to the imagination: all formulations are worked out in exquisite detail with "end-of-chapter" exercises for the reader to ponder.

Actual diagrams and renderings from the Mercedes Benz design floor and a computer disk with all examples worked out, completes a tour de force at the intersection of applied and theoretical mathematics, the likes of which are unlikely to be seen again. Five stars!

My primary reference for curves and surfaces on computers
An excellent, in-depth treatment of the subject of representing curves and surfaces on a computer.Written in a clear expository style, it covers the mathematics and algorithms behind Bezier and related classes of curves. Contributed sections on the differential geometry of curves and surfacesprovide an excellent introduction to the mathematical framework behind thealgorithms. Though not for the casual reader, Farin's book is a perfectreference for the programmer or architect of computer aided designsoftware. I recommend it highly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A workshop, not a textbook
I have no rating for this book, so I put in 2 stars on the basis that workshops are not general interest books.

This volume contains the proceedings of a workshop on Analog Integrated Neural Systems held May 8, 1989, in connection with the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems.
... Read more

Product Description
Short turnaround has become critical in the design ofelectronic systems. Software- programmable components such asmicroprocessors and digital signal processors have been usedextensively in such systems since they allow rapid design revisions.However, the inherent performance limitations of software-programmablesystems mean that they are inadequate for high-performance designs.Designers thus turned to gate arrays as a solution. User-programmablegate arrays (field-programmable gate arrays, FPGAs) have recentlyemerged and are changing the way electronic systems are designed andimplemented. The growing complexity of the logic circuits that can bepacked onto an FPGA chip means that it has become important to haveautomatic synthesis tools that implement logic functions on thesearchitectures. Logic Synthesis for Field-Programmable GateArrays describes logic synthesis for both look-up table (LUT) andmultiplexor-based architectures, with a balanced presentation ofexisting techniques together with algorithms and the system developedby the authors. Audience: A useful reference for VLSI designers, developers ofcomputer-aided design tools, and anyone involved in or with FPGAs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Incredible resource
Gate array implementations differ from traditional logic design not just in scale, but in kind. A million- or billion-gate system is bigger than a student's 4-variable exercises in Karnaugh mapping, for sure. Logic implementation in terms of LUTs (as in Altera's and Xilinx's FPGAs) or muxes (as in Actel's) differs fundamentally from and-or-not logic, too. If you build tools that do LUT-level synthesis from behavioral specifications, you need this book.

This covers a wide range of advanced techniques needed for synthesis into current FPGAs. After a thorough introduction to FPGA basics, the authors start on logic optimization. The authors review traditional kinds of optimization, then move on to the different techniques that serve the different needs of designers with arbitrary N-input functions as their atoms. This includes not just optimizations for minimal area, but for minimal logic depth, too. Because of the intractability of the problems, the authors focus on heuristic algorithms. Quite a few are presented, often in terms of working tool implementations, and compared.

Unlike other books that discuss only combinational synthesis, this includes a lengthy section on mapping sequential logic into specific technologies. This isn't a logic design text, it doesn't say anything about reducing a problem statement to gates and registers. Instead, it starts at that point and explores techniques for mapping clocked logic into the idiosyncracies of a specific logic fabric. Discussion uses Xilinx 3000-family CLBs for demonstration purposes. The analysis, however, can be applied to similar kind of cell with logic, latches, and internal return paths. The authors omit mention of carry chains and other irregularities, but give exhaustive coverage within the basic feature set.

This is a text for the tool builder, not the logic designer. Despite the 1995 date of the edition reviewed here, the generality of the approaches keeps this relevant for even the newest offerings from Altera, Xilinx, and the rest. The authors say little about placement and routing, although they do address on-chip communication lines of various sorts. They omit the special needs of arithmetic synthesis, too, focussing instead on traditional kinds of combinational logic. These are editorial choices, though, not true weaknesses in this book.

The modern tool builder will be aware of more recent and ongoing innovations in synthesis, especially when dealing with the varied, specialized resources on today's chips. But even the most advanced of today's synthesis experts need occasional review or reference, and tomorrow's experts have to start somewhere. If you participate in this specialized field, this book must be on your shelf.

//wiredweird, reviewing the 1995 edition

Interrelated Information
This book covers topics of Logic Synthesis in Interrelated manner,which gives u a feel of confidence for in depth knowledge of Logic Synthesis. ... Read more

Product Description
During the last decades, computer-aided engineering (CAE) methodologies have deeply changed the way of designing and developing products, systems and services. Thanks also to significant hardware and software improvements, CAE techniques are widely used by designers from the early conceptual phases up to the final stages of engineering processes. At the industry level, these methodologies have become a fundamental tool to be competitive and to ensure high quality standards. In industrial engineering, computer-aided methodologies typically are instrumental for design teams in shape modelling, behavioural simulations, digital mock-ups and realistic animations. They are able to follow the development of a product from conception to production, also managing its life-cycle. Character animation is one of the key research areas in computer graphics and multimedia. It has applications in many fields, ranging from entertainment, games, virtual presence and others. This new important book gathers the latest research from around the globe in this dynamic field. ... Read more

Product Description
The rapid evolution and explosive growth of integrated circuittechnology have impacted society more than any other technologicaldevelopment of the 20th century. Integrated circuits (ICs) are useduniversally and the expanding use of IC technology requires moreaccurate circuit analysis methods and tools, prompting theintroduction of computers into the design process. The goal of thisbook is to build a firm foundation in the use of computer-assistedtechniques for IC device and process design. Both practical andanalytical viewpoints are stressed to give the reader the backgroundnecessary to appreciate CAD tools and to feel comfortable with theiruse.
Technology CAD - Computer Simulation of IC Processes andDevices presents a unified discourse on process and device CAD asinterrelated subjects, building on a wide range of experiences andapplications of the SUPREM program. Chapter 1 focuses on themotivation for coupled process and device CAD. In Chapter 2 SUPREM IIIis introduced, and process CAD is discussed in terms ofion-implantation, impurity diffusion, and oxidation models. Chapter 3introduces the Stanford device analysis program SEDAN III(SEmiconductor Device ANalysis). The next three chapters move intogreater detail concerning device operating principles and analysistechniques. Chapter 4 reviews the classical formulation of pnjunction theory and uses device analysis (SEDAN) both to evaluate someof the classical assumptions and to investigate the difficult problemof high level injection. Chapter 5 returns to MOS devices, reviews thefirst-order MOS theory, and introduces some important second-ordereffects. Chapter 6 considers the bipolar transistor. Chapter 7considers the application of process simulation and device analysis totechnology design. The BiCMOS process is selected as a useful designvehicle for two reasons. First, it allows the reader to pull togetherconcepts from the entire book. Second, the inherent nature of BiCMOStechnology offers real constraints and hence trade-offs which must beunderstood and accounted for. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

More Utility from the Book Than You'd Expect
With a book as technical as this, it's hard to know who my potential review readers will be.Nevertheless, I will give a very CONCRETE and ACCESSIBLE review.Also you should bear in mind this:the book does have some concrete and accessible aspects before getting into complex issues; moreover -- and maybe this is the most important of all:the simpler, concrete and accessible aspects of this book DO HAVE UTILITY.I'll give a personal example of the utility of the book's simpler material at the end of my review.But now let's proceed in a nice logical order...

The book deals with "combinatorial optimization" problems.These are problems where there are (1) a gigantic number of discrete configurations that are possible, (2) a way of scoring how desirous a configuration is, and (3) ways to change the configuration from the present one.Examples include the scheduling problem of how to assign 20 workers to one job apiece for 20 jobs (with different worker/job pairings having different costs); and, of course, the famous traveling salesman problem -- requiring precisely one visit to each of N cities and a return to the first.

The most easily understood algorithm to solve combinatorial optimization is BLIND RANDOM SEARCH (BRS):generate a random configuration, score it, repeat (always keeping the best score yet encountered and its corresponding configuration saved in memory).You can have stop criteria as you wish -- including an OR'd pair (which I find to be itself a great improvement) -- such as UNTIL (a) score is X good or betterOR(b)you've generated N random configurations.

BRS performs relatively poorly.A HUGE improvement is an algorithm called "Iterative Improvement" (II).This algorithm is covered on pages 6 thru 8 of the book.The idea is to take a BRS configuration then do some modest moves around that configuration -- scoring and repeating until you had k failures to improve.The best obtained is that one BRS "point".Generate a new BRS point and compare to the old as usual, but now the II loop probably substantially improved that old BRS score to which you are comparing.

Both BRS and II involve only "downhill" moves.Only a lower score and its companion configuration are kept and a new configuration never becomes the current one if its score is worse.The danger is "getting stuck" in a local minimum as opposed to the global minimum (truly best score).To avoid this danger there is the "probabilistic hill-climbing" algorithm of Metropolis.An improved configuration (one with a better score) still becomes the next current configuration, but you have some probability of taking the next current configuration as being the current contendor even if this contendor configuration has a worse score.The probability is related to the score and a parameter that might be thought of as temperature.

From the probabilistic hill-climbing algorithm of Metropolis, all you need to get to an annealing algorithm is a schedule for appropriately reducing the "temperature" parameter (which controls up-hill acceptance probability) in successive steps.The analogy is freezing a liquid to get its perfectly crystalline line-up of atoms, free of defects.Go too fast and you may get a glass rather than a crystal.

The book's chief aim is how to recommend IN GENERAL, without recourse to your specific problem, a schedule for the "temperature" changes.If this be your aim in considering the book, well it goes without saying you need not consider further:here's your book.

But what about the less technical reader? First of all, the book does gently introduce you to combinatorial optimization, blind random search, Metropolis and annealing.Second, the few pages on Iterative Improvement are EMINENTLY USEFUL in a PRACTICAL sense -- and are a good simple alternative to annealing (my example will be at the end).Third is that the book includes several ancillary extras.

The ancillary extras:

· tutorial on all of matrix mathematics
· tutorial on Markov Chains
· material on probability and conditional probability
· tutorial on Statistics -- esp. w.r.t. the Normal distribution and Central Limit Thm

I'm not saying that the ancillary extras are the best there is for a novice level reader, but most folks would not know of the existence of this material in a book called "The Annealing Algorithm".

The final bit of ancillary material is Pascal computer code for all the algorithms in the book and a complete program for doing the whole annealing bit on the electronic chip placement combinatorial problem.

MY EXAMPLE OF UTILITY OF ITERATIVE IMPROVEMENT ALGORITHM:

My problem is not combinatorial optimization, but can still use the ideas of iterative improvement since I am solving a deterministic problem (one without any random element) using Monte Carlo methods (using random numbers).My problem:I have the coordinates of the midpoint of a line segment; the line segment's length is also known and is roughly one-fourth the diameter of a circle; the line segment lies the annular area between this circle and a circle with a radius half-a-line-segment bigger radius than that of the original circle; lastly, given the rotation angle of my line segment, I ask this:what are the coordinates (x,y) of the intersection of the line segment and the original circle?(I took steps to check that YES, there was an intersection.)Solving the problem analytically didn't work.(Or at least, I couldn't do it.)I had used a BRS Monte Carlo approach.Then, re-reading this book, it occurred to me to use the book's algorithm (Iterative Improvement) on pages 6-8 (Pascal code page 8).I got a big improvement in lowering the error.Obviously, I had to delete details in this review (like how I even know error in my problem, and if I do know it, why can't I fix it exactly -- hint:circle is the locus of all points equidistant from a given point), but the POINT FOR YOU is that I attained a great improvement in my problem just by using the book's explicit algorithm (Pascal code) for Iterative Improvement.

Finally, the book is nice to read -- both very easy-on-the-eyes typography (unusual for a "math" book) and a good flow to the authors' writing.

The Annealing Algorithm from Kluwer Academic Publishers
The Annealing Algorithm is part of The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, concentrating on VLSI, Computer Architecture And Digital Signal Processing. The Consulting Editor, Jonathan Allen, has put together a concise, academic publication that introduces the conceptually simple procedures of simulated mathematical annealing and mathematical optimization. Research for the book was carried out at the Thomas J Watson Research Center of the IBM Corporation in Yorktown Heights, NY. Chapters include A Preview of The Annealing Algorithm, Preliminaries from Matrix Theory, (Markov) Chains, Chain Statistics, Annealing Chains, Samples from Normal Distributions, Score Densities, The Control Parameter, Finite-Time Behavior of the Annealing Algorithm, The Structure of the State Space, and (Pascal) Implementation Aspects. References and an Index are included. Mathematicians and computer science professionals seeking to learn about the conception of annealing as a combinatorial optimization tool, will find this publication interesting and will appreciate its use as a basis for further research. ... Read more

Product Description
Software Synthesis from Dataflow Graphs addresses theproblem of generating efficient software implementations fromapplications specified as synchronous dataflow graphs for programmabledigital signal processors (DSPs) used in embedded real- time systems.The advent of high-speed graphics workstations has made feasible theuse of graphical block diagram programming environments by designersof signal processing systems. A particular subset of dataflow, calledSynchronous Dataflow (SDF), has proven efficient for representing awide class of unirate and multirate signal processing algorithms, andhas been used as the basis for numerous DSP block diagram-basedprogramming environments such as the Signal Processing Workstationfrom Cadence Design Systems, Inc., COSSAP from Synopsys TM(both commercial tools), and the Ptolemy environment from theUniversity of California at Berkeley. A key property of the SDF model is that static schedules can bedetermined at compile time. This removes the overhead of dynamicscheduling and is thus useful for real-time DSP programs wherethroughput requirements are often severe. Another constraint thatprogrammable DSPs for embedded systems have is the limited amount ofon-chip memory. Off-chip memory is not only expensive but is alsoslower and increases the power consumption of the system; hence, it isimperative that programs fit in the on-chip memory whenever possible.Software Synthesis from Dataflow Graphs reviews thestate-of-the-art in constructing static, memory-optimal schedules forprograms expressed as SDF graphs. Code size reduction is obtained bythe careful organization of loops in the target code. Data bufferingis optimized by constructing the loop hierarchy in provably optimalways for many classes of SDF graphs. The central result is auniprocessor scheduling framework that provably synthesizes the mostcompact looping structures, called single appearance schedules, for acertain class of SDF graphs. In addition, algorithms and heuristicsare presented that generate single appearance schedules optimized fordata buffering usage. Numerous practical examples and extensiveexperimental data are provided to illustrate the efficacy of thesetechniques. ... Read more