Computational Geometry: An Introduction

by Franco P. Preparata, Michael I. Shamos

From the reviews: "This book offers a coherent treatment, at the graduate textbook level, of the field that has come to be known in the last decade or so as computational geometry. ... ... The book is well organized and lucidly written; a timely contribution by two founders of the field. It clearly demonstrates that computational geometry in the plane is now a fairly well-understood branch of computer science and mathematics. It also points the way to the solution of the more challenging problems in dimensions higher than two." #"Mathematical Reviews"#1 ..". This remarkable book is a comprehensive and systematic study on research results obtained especially in the last ten years. The very clear presentation concentrates on basic ideas, fundamental combinatorial structures, and crucial algorithmic techniques. The plenty of results is clever organized following these guidelines and within the framework of some detailed case studies. A large number of figures and examples also aid the understanding of the material. Therefore, it can be highly recommended as an early graduate text but it should prove also to be essential to researchers and professionals in applied fields of computer-aided design, computer graphics, and robotics." #"Biometrical " "Journal"#2

Genres: Mathematics, Programming, Computer Science, Algorithms

412 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 1985

Reviews

[Dan Boeriu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that started it all for computational geometry. I'd recommend this book for learning the concepts and also for the clear code in it. While de Berg/ Overmars / etc book is more up to date and more formal (and to a certain degree more rigorous), this is an easier read and a better concept manual. BTW - some of the (most) basic stuff in this book is cited in the "Introduction to Algorithms" - the famous MIT book (convex hull, segment intersection). If you start in computational geometry then this is the book. After reading this book, de Berg / Overmars is next. If you have little time then again this is the book to go to.

[Mi Lia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bible of the field, but very dense. It's simply a collection of seminal papers.

If you want to learn computational geometry as a beginner, better read:

- Shamos' PhD thesis
- O'Rourke's books (one of them has implementations in C as well)
- Mark de berg et al.

If you want to dive deep into theory, a la francais, try J-D Boissonat's et all book.

They are all French, so this is much harder and deeper, imho, than the Preparata-Shamos book. Not for the faint hearted.