Seven Things for October 28, 2012

There’s a new introductory book out, Foundations of 3D Computer Graphics, by Steven Gortler. I should get my copy tomorrow. Skimming through the first few chapters (you can see these on Amazon), the focus is definitely on solid theory, which I appreciate. I look forward to spending some quality time with it. (thanks, Pete)
The acronym for the day is MOOC, Massive Open Online Course, a free course for anyone with a reasonable computer. Everybody’s doing it: Ravi Ramamoorthi with Foundations of Computer Graphics, I’m working on the course Interactive Rendering, John Owens and Dave Luebke are doing Introduction to Parallel Programming, etc.
Sean Lilley has a great slideset summarizing the history of shadow algorithms for GPUs, made for this University of Pennsylvania class. Sean and others are currently working on a GigaVoxel and Sparse Textures project, blogging as they go. (thanks, Patrick)
You’ve probably heard of the Valve Employee Handbook. This video gives a nice summary in just two minutes. Fascinating company structure! Sounds lovely and inspiring. But, telecommuting is out. (thanks, Jason)
NGUI’s history: more about UI that “true” 3D graphics, but it’s for Unity. A pretty interesting tale! Moral, maybe: make libraries, not games (thanks, Renaldas)
A WebGL demo from another universe. Note the value set on line 10. (thanks, marpi)
This mask creeps me out. Instructions how to build one are here. (thanks, BoingBoing)

Real-Time Rendering