Modeling

Earlier this year I had to deploy a set of Exchange servers. I am not an MCSE, but I have installed Unix boxes and even hacked sendmail entries, so I figured, how hard should this be? Answer: very.

Exchange has a bezillion options and you'll need an almost zen-like mastery of the application to be successful deploying it. I didn't have the time to build this foundation, and relied heavily on this book to explain some of the arcane concepts.

"Managing MS Exchange Server" is very well indexed and does a pretty good job of explaining some of the obscure registry entries and security options in the product. It also provide the mental "glue" that I needed to see how my Exchange servers would interact.

A few of the registry keys were different as a result of the most recent service packs. This is forgivable given the book's always going to lag the product, and the differences weren't that horrible.

If you're tasked with doing any amount of work with Exchange, you really need this book.

If I had to choose but two MS Exchange books for my arsenal, this would absolutely be one of them. The other would have to be Barry Gerber's "Mastering Exchange Server 5.5"

Paul Robichaux has done an EXCELLENT job of filling in what few gaps Barry Gerber left in his book. Where Gerber provides an excellent guide to setting up and getting to know Exchange, Robichaux takes you deeper into more "advanced" administrative issues such as disaster recovery, security, enabling Exchange for remote users, etc.

If you manage an Exchange server or servers for your orginzation, this book is indispensible. Hats off to the author!

I inherited an Exchange 5.5 server from a previous admin about 2 years ago. I had very limited knowledge of Exchange prior to that. This book gave me an excellent understanding of Exchange. Robichaux's writing style makes this book very readable. Paul, please come out with the Exchange 2000 book!

I agree with the majority of other reviewers on the content of this book, especially the sections of texturing. Very in depth and covers a whole lot of topics on inorganic and organic textures and how to use them. He also takes you step by step through the modeling process of a gun and a big ugly monster.

But instead of spending too much time repeating what everyone else is saying good about the book, I am going to tell you what I think isn't so good about the book because there are a few not-so-good things about the book you should know before spending half-a-hundred dollars on it. Though, I still give the book 4 stars because it has many more good points than bad.

The most depressing thing is that you really need full versions of all the software programs used to be able to follow along with the book the way you need to in order to learn what your reading. Sure, you get some experience working with a bunch of programs like 3d studio max 5 (very heavily used in 3d game model production) but you don't even do 3d modeling it. Instead, you follow along with the modeling process in TrueSpace 4 or 6. What you'll find REALLY frustrating about that is, unless you have $595.00 to spend on the full, legal copy of version 6.6, you won't be able to save any of your work using the DEMO version that comes with the book! So, you may spend an hour or more modeling your gun, and then have to close the program down and load the model that the author made on the book's CD in order to continue to the UV mapping, texture painting, optimizing and triangulating which is done in 3ds max 5 (of which the demo version is also included on the book's cd-rom). The modeling process could have been done just as easily in 3ds max 5 which is much more powerful than TrueSpace anyways. Why switch between the two programs when one can do both tasks? 3ds max 5 costs an arm and a leg (around $3,105.00), but can do EVERYTHING that TrueSpace & DeepUV combined can do. The full, retail (useable) version of DeepUV costs $795.00.

If you don't believe me about UV mapping for characters in video games using 3ds max, then check out the book "Mastering 3DS MAX 4" which has a section on modeling a character then UV mapping it just like it is done in DeepUV. DeepUV is a complete waist of money if you own a copy of 3ds max 4 or higher.

Now when texturing you use two different programs, Deep Paint 3D 2.0 and Adobe Photoshop 6. Both programs are equally good and equally powerful, though Photoshop is much more popular. I do not understand why he spreads tasks out across the two programs when he could have done just about everything in one program or another without using both programs. Deep Paint 3D 2.1 costs $995.00! Adobe Photoshop 7 costs you about $609.00!

See what I'm getting at? You gotta have a fortune to spend on graphics production software in order to fully and completely follow along with this book and to be able to do ANYTHING productive with the information you've learned after reading the book, especially if you are a game programmer like me who has to make 3d models, then texture them and plug them into a 3d rendering engine.

You can do anything and everything this book covers by having a full version of just two peices of software, Adobe Photoshop 7 and 3ds max 4 or higher. That's it...that's all you need. Buying two 3D modelers, a program for UV mapping, and two texture paint programs is a waist of a whole lotta money. I understand the good it can do because one program can essentially be better at one task than a similar program can, but how many of us hobbiests have over $6099.00 to spend on software to follow in the footsteps of the book author? Not me, certainly.

If the book was designed with the hobbiest or budding superstar in mind then it would have focused all it's attention on production software that doesn't require you to be a zillionare. In fact another software program out there, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 can also be used for making game quality textures and 2D sprite art very much like Photoshop 7 or Deep Paint 3D 2.1 but it only costs about $100.00 for the full retail version. And then there's 3D modeling software like Milkshape 3D which is also VERY cheap in comparison to 3ds max, Maya, Lightwave, TrueSpace, Cinema 4DL, etc. And the best thing about Milkshape 3D is that it was made specifically for making game-only 3D models (originally made for the game Half-Life).

Don't get me wrong, I do like a lot of things about this book. The book does a good job of showing you how to use an array of different programs and how to effectively use them for making game art such as 2D textures and 3D models and how to prepare those models for use in a game engine, and it even includes a demo game engine to plug your models into. But just be warned that owning those programs isn't necessary to make quality 2D and 3D artwork for games, but IS required to follow along with the book completely. You can "work around" with the book using the demos that comes with the CD, but don't get too excited because you can't even save your TrueSpace 3D models anyways, so how are you going to get the models into 3ds max 5 for further manipulation and game prep?

This is the first book I've seen to cover almost everything a 2D/3D beginner game artist would need to get going. The author uses a great stepwise approach for all tutorials: modeling, uv unwrapping, texturing, and setting up models for a game engine. There's a huge section on basic texturing techniques as well that could even be used for web pages. My only wish was to see animation techniques, but the author covers Max biped rigging and adjusting, nodal arrangements, etc, and the game engine handles the rest. Still very inclusive and great read! I thought the CD for the book was cool and packed with everything I needed to get started.

totally cool book i got lots out of it. texturing was great too. got me totally into making models and using teh torque game engine. i think this book is killer so far

Listen Software Solutions: Kimball is considered by many to be the father of data warehousing. I learned how to set up an dimension and fact table from this book. This was cool and very different. I had a complete set of Oracle data warehousing books, but this book was the beginning. I've read many books on data warehousing that reference Kimball. I spent alot of time thinking about SQL pivots, group by. In fact, I wrote a simple OLAP tool that allow search through the dimension into the fact table. Kimball explains the purpose of data warehousing. He also helps one realize the planning necessary to manage a data warehouse. One thing is clear, data warehousing is important and companies are using them. One significant point he makes in the book is that relational databases were intended to make data retrieval simple. Wow, what happen? The most complex code I've ever written was for report, hugh SQL statements with numerous joins spanning numerous tables, functions, and subqueries. Additionally the book covers advanced topics like data marts, cubes, and snowflakes are described and illustrated effectively in the book. I enthusatically recommend this book. Data Warehousing is the next revolution in information processing. It was very exciting to see concept become reality, a 3-Dimensional look at your data. Most of my work was using Oracle and Oracle Discover. However, I did build a few cubes using Microsoft OLAP tools. This is the book to buy.

If you want to understand data warehouse design either as user, architect or developer, you need to read this book cover to cover.

Things I like about this book:

* Coverage of all core principles in dimensional data modeling using examples. Ralph does not just lecture to you -- he shows you how to put it into practice

* Coverage of a vast variety of domains. This alone makes the book a must-read

* Recap of major principles at the end of the book to bring it all together

* Excellent writing -- Ralph does not treat you like a dummy; neither does he assume that you have an IQ north of 200

* When you purchase this book, you are in effect purchasing a sliver of the combined knowledge of both authors in the data warehousing field. Highly recommended

I implemented a data warehouse using some of these principles back in 1999. The project was a resounding success and is the most popular application in the financial services firm that I implemented it in. (Infact when I lost my job at an Internet company, they immediately offered me a job based on this implementation). The only sad part to the whole story is that we made a few mistakes in implementation that are now very difficult to correct because the data warehouse has become core to the business -- we have too many end-user applications riding on it!

This book simply is the best data warehouse book in the market, and an absolute must-read if you are in Data Warehouse field. The best part about this book is that it's not hogged down with technical non-sense, and it's quite easy to read and understand. Highly recommended.

Excellent practical introduction to data modeling in the relational paradigm using entity-relationship techniques. Detailed and instructive discussions weighing the relative merits of alternative models for scenarios. Positions data modeling within the context of developing information systems for business. Real-world, messy examples of the kinds of problems and errors that can arise-some of them a bit contrived, but usually to make a good point. A number of respectable sources footnoted, but unfortunately no bibliography.

Proposes evaluation criteria for measuring model quality. Admits conflict among these criteria-all desirable attributes of a model cannot be optimized simultaneously. Trade-offs must be made. Recognizes the limits of data modeling: "Don't try to solve every problem by developing a conventional data model (p. 265)."

Emphasizes that data modeling, although often confused with analysis, is not analysis. It is design. There is no one correct model for every scenario. Advocates using creativity to propose multiple alternative models before selecting a solution. Establishes the role of the data modeler by analogy with that of a residential architect.

Interestingly, goes on to say that the distinction between analysis and design is important-without ever drawing it. Does not describe data "analysis," if such a thing even exists.

Differentiates between data model and database design. Mainly because the paradigm used to represent the data while modeling it with the database customer (relational tables & columns, in this case) might differ from the paradigm that the database uses to represent it (network or hierarchy, perhaps). More recently, it has become common to model a solution with customers using the object paradigm and to implement it with database software using the relational paradigm. The paradigms need not always differ, but when they do, a translation is required before building the database.

Addresses not just how a data model works, but also how to build one, including the people to involve, the inputs to consult, and the sequence of tasks. Suggests various approaches, including top-down (entity-relationship modeling from scratch), bottom-up (using existing documents), and the customization of existing models and model fragments.

Covers the five normal forms of relational data, not omitting the limits of normalization and the assumptions on which it is based. Contrasts normalization with entity-relationship modeling as "bottom-up" versus "top-down," the former emphasizing technical soundness and the latter emphasizing business suitability. Admits that normalization is usually performed explicitly only as a final check after entity-relationship modeling-if at all. Examples show importance of normalization.

Numerous interesting observations on type hierarchies and generalization.

Notes compromise between representing business rules with specific data structures and accommodating business change with generic data structures: the more rules are represented in data structure, the more susceptible is that structure to future change. Unstable rules are better represented in program code or in data values-both easier to change than the structure of a production database. Cites frequency of both over-generic and over-specific models.

Makes the important point that data models represent not the real world, but rather WHAT WE KNOW about it. Some data models quite properly assert that a person might be neither man nor woman-because a business might not know the gender of every person in which it has an interest. Personally, I would go a little further by adding that a model represents only what we CARE to know.

Marring the otherwise valuable discussion of type hierarchies is their misapplication to modeling the various roles in which persons and organizations might act. A role may by nature be assumed and abandoned without changing identity. Using a subtype to represent it forces the subtype's instances to become and then to "unbecome" instances of the subtype as they change their roles-an obvious absurdity. We would indeed venture too far into the spirit world to claim that one might cancel membership in Homo Sapiens while retaining membership in Mammalia for the purpose of exercising at some later date the option to reincarnate as a chimpanzee!

Points out necessity of asymmetry in implementation of recursive many-to-many relationship. Debunks some previously asserted "rules" regarding relationships. Discusses transferability of relationships and uses this concept in discussing one-to-one relationships, foreign keys in primary keys (weak entities), and time-dependent relationships.

Interesting details on attributes that many similar books skip-particularly in the section on attribute generalization.

Sadly accepts the notion that all of a model's codes might be implemented very nicely in one big table. This idea is an abomination. It impedes the evolution of "code entities" into non-trivial entities. It complicates enforcement of referential integrity. The suggestion of views for isolating cohesive subsets of the big code table defeats the very data-driving that code tables are built to enable.

Also errs in proposing Code as a proper supertype for a "code entity." Code is a meta-entity. It represents nothing in the domain of the data model. In that domain it is not a supertype of anything. It would make as much sense to say that each thing is a type of Word because it has a word to describe it. It is valuable to recognize the common processing shared by many codes, but that commonality does not by itself imply a supertype.

Good exposition of the option to use data structure, program code, or data value to enforce a business rule.

Advises representing rules in the entity-relationship diagram using features for which there is "little intention of actually implementing (p. 269)." Type hierarchies are particularly recommended in this regard-even if they are not valid partitionings. Certainly, there are rules dependent on the values of attributes, but let's not make each attribute the basis of a subtype partitioning just to permit their graphic depiction! Advocates graphic depiction for communication with business customers even though diagrams are notoriously difficult for business customers. Diagrams are best suited to DBAs and programmers, but they are the very ones who wish not to see them cluttered with unimplemented constructs!

Quibbles and quips notwithstanding, a good book on one of my favorite subjects.

Dr. Simsion's book is the absolutely best on Data Modeling and Database Design. The book is written in a language that is clear, concise and easy to grasp.
The concepts are addressed in a sequence that makes them easy to understand.
Several years ago, I learned Data Modeling using the 1st edition of this book.
The second edition is even better.
I highly recommend it for novices and experts alike.

Marcelo Rocha DaSilva
...

I read this book casually at first, thinking that it would merely confirm what I knew, since I was finishing up a database certification program. So when it pushed me to think harder, I put it away. HOWEVER, I recently returned to the book after some experience with Paradox for DOS, and I now see the light. It took real work to get through the first two chapters--about three hours for me--but I am glad that I have revisited this book and can tell everyone to (1) get it if they are serious about database design and (2) finish the lessons, even if they seem difficult or if they don't serve up simple rules right away. Simsion makes you really think about data organization, something usually left by the side of the road in the rush to put up a system. At least with this book your database will have the best possible foundation.

I'm a huge fan of the book that WROX has put out over the years (the 2 Beginning VB 6 books are phenominal). They've taught me virtually everything I know about programming. However, I must say that this book falls far short of my expectations for this publisher. It started out great; the examples of using RUP and UML were very helpful. I also learned a lot about MTS, XML, etc. that I did not know before. However, when it got to to actually writing the application, I had to take charge. Repetitive logic, misaligned object architechture, and not enough descriptions made me so frustrated that I only finished the book so I could rewrite the application more efficiently. Now, I'm a far cry from a professional programmer, so maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture. But, when I read a book to lean a new technology or method, I don't expect to be saying things like "Why did they do it this way?" or "It'd be much more clear if they did it this way." These, among other things, were said while reading every page in the sections dealing with writing the app. All in all it was very disappointing, but I won't hold it against these guys; they're still my favorite.

The first third of the book deals with subjects covered in other WROX publications. The treatment here is cursory, but enough to be usefull. However, once the code is covered things get messy. Properties are all named with Get (not good practice) and several properties should be coded as methods, for which the authors seem to have little use. ADO should get more attention, but the authors just go ahead and hard code database connections. The same parameters are sometimes treated as variants, then strings or integers. The stored procedures for the T-SQL database were all named with an sp_ prefix (which is a no-no), and so on... On the whole it's a usefull book, once you clean up the authors' mess.

In my opinion, this is how every book that attempts to teach computer programming should be written. Most books on programming tend to teach bits and pieces that leave the reader hanging in mid-air. You learn the "alphabets" and the "parts of speech" of a programming language, but you are not taught how to put it all together into a beautiful prose, right?
Not this book. "Beginning VB 6 AppDev" takes you, as it were, by the hands, and leads you through the tunnels, the caverns and other subtleties of application development. What you have at the end is a superb application, and a well enlightened reader. It is very rare to find a book this good: a single book that covers virtually everything needed to develop a fully, functional scalable application. Yes, it covers the whole development life cycle of a multitiered application.
The authors did a very good job. I gave it five stars because it is worth five stars. If you are not convinved, get a copy, and study it.

I am a professor here at Utah State University and I have been teaching the undergraduate database course at various places for +9 years as well as researching accounting and databases for 7 years. I quickly grew tired of standard database textbooks as they are either simply a glossary of terms or a series of mathematical proofs with little real-world value. Almost all college textbooks teach modeling elements but do not teach real world issues related to data modeling. This book really hits the critical data modeling issues. This book combined with a good SQL book is a much better choice for students that desire to become database professionals. A more advanced data modeling book would be the David Hay book. These are THE two best books on data modeling bar none!!!

When I was faced with creating a data model for an entire system for the first time, I instructed myself from this book for the theory, and from "The Data Modeling Handbook" by Reingruber and Gregory for the implementation details. There are many books on databases, some of them huge, which cover the same old rules about the five normal forms, etc. What absorbed my interest in this book is that it described how to model a relational database using concepts which, to me, seemed somewhat object-oriented. This reasonably-sized book was a very readable, informative exposition of the practical theory to have in mind when conceptualizing a database. The database built with the advice from this book is still going strong today...it's robust, flexible and expandable. Some credit for that goes to the lessons learned from this book.

This book is probably one the best books on data modelling I've had the privilege of reading. It very clearly lays out concepts that I personally have found difficult to understand from other texts. The manner is very down-to-earth and doesn't resort to academic-speak as many of these sort of texts have a tendancy of doing. His humour is well-placed, (not to mention nice to see! The author clearly doesn't take himself too seriously, and this helps his explanations tremendously!) I liked this book, and think you will too if you want something that will give you the basic tools to create a solid, dependable data store that will live into the future.

Exchange Server 2003 Administrator's Pocket Consultant is exceptionally well written. Do not be influenced by the few negative reviews seen here on Amazon. I picked this text up at Barnes & Noble and spent an hour with it before biuying it and leaving the store. I am a CCNA, MCSE, and A+, and I have developed a much greater understanding of Exchange by reading William Stanek's book.

I liked the straightforward no nonsense approach to problem solving and feature implementation. This is one book you can read from cover to cover. The book excels as a technical reference as well, giving the reader pertinent information quickly, with good tips and great real world advice. I especially appreciated the comprehensive coverage of mobile access.

This is a must book for anyone who admins Exchange. The best how to for daily operations and fast answers.

William Stanek has done an outstanding job with this book. "Exchange 2003 Administrator's Pocket Consultant" provides excellent coverage of Exchange essentials. The information is clear, well organized and focusd on what an administrator needs to know.

Great book for Exchange 2003 administration - deserves more than 5 stars. This is like an Exchange 2003 bible for the task you do every day. I read it cover to cover, buy the book without hesitation.

Great coverage on almost everything about Exchange 2003. Particuarly coverage of client configurations, wireless, web and dial-up access. Excellent coverage of directory services and data store administration. Good coverage of backup and recovery. Great coverage of message transfer, queuing, maintenance and monitoring.

This is not designed as a study guide. But definitely can help you in that aspect, I'm using it as an additional resource.

Jay Sneider
MCT

I've been an Exchange developer and administration for 6 years and have gone through a lot of admin, developer, programmer books on the subject. Probably bought a lot more books than I ever used. When gearing up for Exchange Server 2003 I went back to look at the books I actually used previously and went to find out if new editions were available of those books. I bought Exchange Server 2003 Administrator's Pocket Consultant as soon as I saw it. It hasn't let me down yet. The book will be used as the core book in my Exchange Server 2003 Admin class.

This a book about enterprise integration solutions, authors claim that they are technology neutral, it is true. In the examples and implementations, they chose 3 most popular messaging frameworks to illustrate the patterns. However, they are pretty biased toward messaging as the "better" solution to enterprise integration strategy. It may have a lot of edges over the other approaches, sometimes it is just easy to use a simple wrapper/facade to do the integration. But I guess authors really intend to push their messaging solutions as the subtitle indicates.

Having said that, this is an excellent book of message pattern language, which I believe is the first one introducing the interesting topic. The books touches from the architectural patterns, e.g., messaging bus, pipe and filters, to common design patterns, e.g., publish/subscribe, request/reply, to some patterns that most MOMs provide as integrated solutions, e.g., durable subscriber, message filter, message expiration etc. With all these patterns at hand, a system architect would be able to craft a messaging pattern-oriented enterprise integration architecture by applying the appropriate patterns compositely.

The book would be better if authors describe some patterns implementation in more detail. E.g., it would be interesting to see how the message expiration is implemented, does the message contain a timer or the message channel monitor each individual message from start up? How does the channel interact with the message and check the expiry? Guaranteed delivery is another example. I know most of these implementation details only interest MOM developers, whereas pattern users are only interested in how and when to apply the patterns, but now that the book is about patterns themselves, implementation details would be appreciated.

Since all the patterns introduced in the book form a messaging pattern language, knowing each pattern's strength and limitation under the context, scope and different forces, and how it interacts with other patterns to form a bigger(composite) pattern are essential to grasp the pattern language. A collaboration diagram to show each pattern's transition/migration/composition to each other would be helpful.

This is a nice book because it identifies and names the patterns for enterprise integration.

But in certain places the author adds to the confusion out there in the software industry. In Chapter 2, Page 51, Martin Fowler says Web Services are the new way for Remote Procedure Invocation. This is not the case anymore. Today you are discouraged from looking at Web Services only as a firewall-friendly and platform-independent version of traditional RPC protocols.

Web Services are one of the major (but not the only) element of the Service-Oriented Architecture and when it comes to Web Services, you should be really looking at passing messages, and not invoking remote components.

Gregor has a gift for explaining design patterns. We were trying to explain the problems with passing a large file up and down a messaging bus to our bioinformatics users, when I ran across Enterprise Integration Patterns. As soon as I showed the Claim Check pattern to our designers, they got it instantly. Five of my colleagues purchased the book, and we asked Gregor to come teach a class on it. This is the best written book on design patterns I've seen. I reallly like the list of patterns inside the book cover -- nice terse explanation, and great mnemonic icons.

Considering that that the "UML Toolkit", although now dated, is a useful book, I was expecting quite a lot from "Business Modeling with UML". However, it seems like the authors couldn't make up their mind about what to focus on. The core of the book, the Eriksson-Penker business extensions, make up for a mere twenty pages of the book, and the rest of the book is spent discussing various patterns, business rules and the UML in general. Many of the subjects discussed are based upon earlier works, and treated a bit too lightly, imho. Similar to just watching the highlights on sportscenter, it just doesn't tell the whole story. There are also a number of (minor) syntactical errors in the chapter dealing with OCL, which somewhat confuses things for the reader. Despite this, not all is bad with the book. The E-P Business Extensions are useful, and their creation of four business views (similar to the 4+1 view of software architecture) is indeed a good one. The book also fills a void in the UML and RUP, which is well needed, so by all means, take a look at it.

One of the weaknesses of the Unified Modelling Language is its relatively limited support for modelling at the Enterprise level, especially to accurately model business processes. The UML purists believe that everything should be reduced to Use Cases, while these authors recognise that much more is necessary.

The book covers five quite distinct topics:
1. An introduction to business modelling and UML, explaining the problems the authors want to help solve, and describing each of the relevant techniques of UML,
2. A proposal for a group of extensions to UML (using that language's own established extensibility mechanisms) so that that it can better model business processes,
3. A description of the variety of views and models which will be required to establish a comprehensive understanding of the business, or at least part of it,
4. A repository of "business patterns", which you can use to model the business,
5. A comprehensive worked example.

Each of these is quite detailed. In particular, the book contains probably the best introduction to the Object Constraint Language (OCL), and its use to model business rules, that I have read anywhere. The sections on how to do business modelling are also very good, as are the introductions to the relevant UML techniques.

The "Eriksson-Penker extensions for business modelling" are important because several UML-based case tools have now implemented them as an emerging standard for business process modelling with UML. If you want to fully understand how these work, this is the book to read.

The business patterns are more of a "curates egg". Some are extremely useful, and others innovative which could easily solve your problems where there is an accurate match. That said, some are less good and seem to state the obvious, although with patterns it is always difficult to know if you are judging some harshly simply because you are so familiar with them and other readers will get more value. Some of the pattern explanations are a bit repetitive, and the "examples" often sound very artificial, but overall they are useful, and a single one which solves a real business modelling problem for you will justify the rest.

At over 400 pages, some of which is occasionally slightly slow and ponderous this is not an ideal book to read from cover to cover. But it is definitely one to study, focusing on whichever topic is most relevant to you at any time, and I can happily recommend it.

Sometime ago I have been wondering if somebody will try to bridge the gap between business modeling (the one used by consultants) and software engineering. It would certainly make it easier for people to understand and explain business operations.

This book is an application of the UML into the realm of business modeling. It is very good in the sense that it explains and goes through the patterns that form business models. The introduction on UML is pretty short and concise, so if you are new to it try using "Applying UML..." book to get an introduction. Be prepared to sit down and spend some time reading, since the material can be a little bit daunting to try to understand and remember all the patterns available. Overall, I wish I had this book for Systems Analysis instead of the outdated software engineering books that we used.

This book is excellent in giving the reader the "big picture" of foundational knowledge needed to learn technical animation. I strongly suggest using this book in introductory courses that teach technical-based animation, looking at techniques, not creativity.

I'm entirely new to 3D modeling and animation. I found this book to be exceptionally well written. The author provides a clear and concise explanation of the principles of 3D computer graphics, with easy-to-understand examples throughout. As stated in other reviews, it is not software specific. If you are looking for an introductory but thorough 3D primer, I recommend this book without reservation. It should provide a solid foundation for those who have little or no prior computer graphics experience.

Michael O'Rourke's book, Principles of Three Dimensional Computer Animation, is a great asset for beginner and advanced 3D animators. Throughout my graduate studies, as a 3D animator, I've read many 3D manuals. None compare to O'Rourke's coherent writing style and updated animation/modeling/rendering procedures.