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[BOOK] Interactive Computational Geometry: A Taxonomic Approach

Jim Arlow, Clear View Training
Posted 11 years ago

WOLFRAM MATERIALS for the ARTICLE:

Jim Arlow, Interactive Computational Geometry: A Taxonomic Approach.

Clear View Training

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Hello community,

I have just published a new book in CDF format called "Interactive Computational Geometry". Ed Pegg of Wolfram suggested I notify the community. The book comprises text, plus 53 interactive Demonstrations of a selection of some of the most fundamental computational geometry algorithms.

Note: The book is written for Mathematica 10, but will work OK in Player 9 (until Player 10 is released). There are 3 demonstrations that are Mathematica 10 specific that don't work in Player 9. These are simple demos of Mathematica 10 features, and don't really detract from the rest of the book.

Full book is embedded below.
POSTED BY: Jim Arlow
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POSTED BY: EDITORIAL BOARD
POSTED BY: Jim Arlow

Jim, this is a nicely done book, congratulations! I am very happy to see another CDF book done with a professional quality in addition to calculus and physics ones. Any good tips for future authors, any advice? Eric Schulz, author of the calculus book did a great talk - Publishing a CDF ebook: an Author's Perspective - about details of the process. I wonder if you followed a similar path.
POSTED BY: Sam Carrettie
Richard Gaylord
Richard Gaylord
Posted 11 years ago

i don't like the CDF's in the demos at all. the inner core of code (which is what interests me), is wrapped within one or more layers of display commands such Manipulate. i would like to see are programs stripped of all these display commands so i can see what is being calculated, not what is being displayed.
POSTED BY: Richard Gaylord

The book looks great! One nice feature of using symbolic content like you do is that the CDF file is actually quite small. The content is defined as plaintext and evaluated at runtime, keeping the size well below that of some mathematical ebooks with embedded images.
POSTED BY: Jesse Friedman

Jesse, thank you very much for your kind words about the book. Yes - the book is very small (1.6MB) considering the number of figures. I have published several other books, both paper, conventional eBooks and interactive iBooks for iPad. From an authors perspective, CDF has a very, very nice workflow because the interactive features are all in the Wolfram Language, rather than having to drop down in HTML5 as you do for iBooks. It frustrates me that when I write books about UML and BPMN (my main areas of expertise), I can't ship "live" models in the same way I can ship "live" mathematics with CDF. Wolfram is really ahead of the game here!
POSTED BY: Jim Arlow

Thanks for the suggestion James - I think it is an excellent idea. I made the first few chapters available for free from the book website. For your convenience, here is a direct link to the free sample.
POSTED BY: Jim Arlow
Gustavo Delfino
Gustavo Delfino
Posted 11 years ago

Jim, be aware that the sample will not look 100% OK with the current CDF player (based on Mathematica 9). The InfiniteLine command is new in Mathematica 10 and is not included in CDF Player 9.
POSTED BY: Gustavo Delfino

Thanks for the warning Gustavo. Yes - you are correct. Everything works OK if you use Mathematica 10 - "Preview CDF", but if you open the file in a downloaded version of Player (which is currently version 9), you get an error for the three Mathematica 10 specific demonstrations. Fortunately, none of these demonstrations are key, because I added them just to demonstrate some new Mathematica 10 features - they do not affect the algorithms or the rest of the book in any way. I will put a note on the book website explaining this for Player 9 users. Hopefully Player 10 is not too far off!

Actually, there is a really interesting and important point for CDF authors here - I assumed (and I think most reasonable people would), that "File/CDF Preview" in Mathematica 10 previews your document in the current version of the CDF Player. We now know that it doesn't - it uses some other version built in to Mathematica 10. I will add this to my post about advice for CDF authors.
POSTED BY: Jim Arlow
James Stein
James Stein
Posted 11 years ago

Your book appears interesting. May I suggest that you make a chapter (or portion) available for free, so that people can sample before they buy? (On Amazon, one can often read the first chapter of a book before making a purchase decision.)
POSTED BY: James Stein
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