Applications Books

This is the one and only book available on duct acoustics. The author presented the topics nicely and should be in the book shelf of every acoustician.

This is one of the specialised book in the topic of duct acoustics. It is unfortunate that it is out of print. In fact this is a must for those specialising in the subject of flow acoustics. I wish that it should get republished.

One and Only book available in this area for the practising engineers. The book covers basic to advanced topics in this area. The chapter on Experimental and design considerations of mufflers is very interesting and informative even for novice.

Texts on acoustics approach the subject from many different angles and at many different levels. Pierce's text is classic, rigorous and complete. It should serve the needs of serious students of acoustics for a variety of purposes - musical acoustics and sound are my particular perspective.

Some writers cater their approach to electrical engineers or to mechanical engineers, assuming that by tieing everything to those disciplines they will make the effort easier for their readers. This may serve well those who come from those disciplines, but may not serve others well and may not serve all applications of acoustics equally well either. Pierce does not do so. His approach is rigorously mathematical and pure, going to the heart of the matter, rather than one of attempting to cut corners by making analogies to other fields that you may or may not know.

The book is not for the faint of heart or the mildly curious, it is deep and demanding. But he organizes it superbly and writes intelligently with a wonderful way of integrating the history and development of the science, and the graphics are exceptionally clear and communicative.

Highly recommended for the very serious about this subject. My favorite among the books I have consulted.

This book was used as a text book for one of our courses during my masters. In my opinion it is one of the classic books available in acoustics. If you want to learn fundamentals and to know "why" for any acoustical phenomena, then this book is for you. If you are looking for an applied (engineering) kind of book, then this book is not for you. The author gives a clear and concise approach to the acoustics problem formulations. The end of chapter excercises are very helpful(some problems require references to current journal literature for detailed formulation).

Clearly this is the book to learn physical pricnciples from. I wish the author would have added a couple of chapters on aeroacoustics and related phenomena.

Das Buch ist wunderbar. Herr Doktor Pierce hat ein ausgezeichnet Buch doch geschrieben.

I have been using this book (and others) for over 25 years. Whenever I need to remind myself of the basics, this is the book I always grab first. This is the best book of it's kind that I've run accross.

This is the best introductory text in probability ever. Good examples, clear, with lots of good questions and answers. Forget the others, this is the one.

This book is the best textbook for introduction to probability. Forget Chung, forget Ross, forget Feller. All these books assume that you know probability and that you are either revising or looking for advanced concepts. But the book in question assumes only some knowledge in calculus. The chapters are easy-paced and there are nemerous exercises to help you understand the concepts. Another factor that adds to the utility of the book, is the thoughtful addition of answers to most of the exercises. This makes the book suitable for self-study. I would heartily recommend the book to any person new to probability.

I found this book to contain some little known interesting facts, and new ways to utilize the new photoshop tools. It was easy to find exactly the subject I was looking for, along with finding little known shortcuts.

I confess. My library (ok the bathroom) is stacked with Archie comics for the occasional pastime while taking care of things. My latest edition is this book for the sole reason that there is just too much to absorb at one sitting. Nor will I use this book as a desktop reference tool while working on a deadline. I need to absorb all this great information over time, like the multipication table.

The book have something that usually is loathly missing in most. It give you paths to the command that is speaks of in the relevant question/answer sections regarding particular needs (Q. How do I resized a batch of various sized images. A. Use Fit Image (File > Automate > Fit Image - course there is more to this than that, but you get the drift).

Great guns. A keeper for me and other professionals who count on Photoshop to make the mortgage. BTW the Archies stay as well.

Unlike Blatner&Frasers Real World book on Photoshop CS this one is set up for the intermediate or even the beginning photoshopper.Where the Real World Books gets in depth information on each item this well explained book gives you the opportunity to learn easy-to-follow answers on a lot of beginners questions:
-page 1-28:all about photoshop essentials(upgrading smoothly,control&menus,windows&palettes,monitors,tools,editing objects and handling documents.
-page 29-48: getting the picture:creating and opening files,exploring camera raw,scanning
-page 49-84:image editing basics(resolution,cropping,selection strategies,amazing transformations,duplicating)
-page 87-123:correcting images(evaluating an image,making global corrections,making local corrections,maintaining image quality,productivity perks,sharpening,actions&batches)
-page 125-139:working with layers(managing layers,aligning layers,layer masks,combining images)
-page 141-154: working with type(creating &editing type,get set with type)
-page 155-179:enhancing creativity(brushes,filter fun,perspective&distortion,darkroom adventures,paths&the pen)
-page 181-194: keeping color consistent(setting up color,previewing color output,color space conversions)
-page 195-212:organizing&finding images(building your bridge,annotating&organizing,fast file finding,production practices)
-page 215-244:printing,saving&exporting(printing,images for other programs,store multiple variations in one file,images for the internet,it's showtime)
-index page 245-253
David Blatner& Conrad Chavez did a tremendous job grouping hundreds of tips in 244 pages.Each chapter starts with a red question mark next to an individual question like ...?Is it true you can actually use the Crop Tool to correct perspective in an image or...?Tell me about the new Smart Sharpen command.How is it different than Unsharp Mask?Do I use it with Unsharp Mask or instead of it? or...?Infrared images look realy cool.How can I simulate that effect in Photoshop?
The book is in a handy format and each item is a small tutorial with the necessary examples illustrated on the page.
Don't read it from cover to flap(your choice!) because it's no covering "every feature" in PS but use it as a reminder for practical problems you encounter daily.
I put it on my night table and when I dream about PS(i'm insane!)and don't find THAT solution according my dreams it still lays on my side and I can dream further without worrying that my dreampicture would'nt achieve.
By the way this book is applicable for problems with CS and CS2;the content is worth the price.Well done gurus!

If you are not already a superuser of MATLAB or a mathematician and want to choose one single book on MATLAB that also brings a solid math base, this is the one. The authors have chosen the subjects very well, with emphasys on the use of mathematical principles coupled with the use of the computing power offered by MATLAB.

In addition to a sound presentation of concepts - without however being extensive (or boring) on theoretical details that probably would not be relevant - this book addresses most areas of University Math (Physical Sciences undergraduate curriculum) with a wealth of good practical programming examples. I specially liked the chapters on Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues, those on Differential equations, Fourier analysis and the simple but very clear and didatic one on Discrete sytems.

In summary, although not a complete text, the subjects addressed in this book are so well presented that it can be forgiven for not covering some areas (like complex variables and calculus of variations, to name only two). There is no waste of pages in this book, but as a suggestion for future enhancement I would mention the inclusion of a chapter dedicated to exploring the graphing power available in MATLAB.

Also as a reference, for most needs you'll probably be able to start doing something productive right away after reading. Well worth its price!

This is an excellent reference book not only for matlab, also an excellent reference book for the basic concepts such as Fourier Analysis. I think any engineers who work in electric design filed must have a copy.

This is an excellent book for studying advanced math. Important concepts clearly explained with good matlab examples. But I was surprised to find this book titled "Engineering Math" with the miss out of some thing like probability and random variables which are of the critical importance for Electronics/Communications students.

Since its first release in 1992, OpenGL has been rapidly adopted as the graphics API of choice for real-time interactive 3D graphics applications. The OpenGL state machine is easy to understand, but its simplicity and orthogonality enable a multitude of interesting effects that require more room than can be accommodated in the OpenGL "Red Book". The objective of this book is to demonstrate how to generate more satisfying images using OpenGL in general, and how to achieve some sophisticated results in particular. There are three general areas of discussion: basic OpenGL concepts, basic techniques, and advanced techniques.
The first part of the book goes over some of the more basic OpenGL material - 3D transformations, color, shading, and lighting. Although the second part of the book - basic techniques - may look old hat at first, it does cover some interesting subjects such as deferred shading and image processing techniques that you don't normally think of as wedded to computer graphics. The best part of the book, to me, is part 3 on advanced techniques. In particular the chapters on scene realism, natural detail, illustration and artistic techniques, and scientific visualization have very unique material on them that reveal algorithmic details along with enlightening illustrations and pseudocode. The reader of this book should already be familiar with performing computer graphics using OpenGL and also be somewhat mathematically sophisticated considering that mathematics is heavily used in this book. All of the code for the methods and effects used at this book are in a zipfile at the book's website. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has gone through the "OpenGL Programming Guide" and wants to take their computer graphics skills to the next level.
One of the authors of this book does have an extensive tutorial freely available on the web that is an older subset of this book, so you might want to check it out and see if you like his writing style before you purchase. Type "Advanced Graphics Programming Techniques Using OpenGL" into Google and the first address listed should be the author's tutorial. It is no longer on OpenGL.org as far as I can tell.

Today there are many books for pro (GPU Gems, ShaderX etc), many for beginners (superbible, redbook, orange book etc), but practically no for intermediate level. This is one of them. It's well written and tells the basics of advanced 3D algorithms: batching, env mapping, bump mapping etc.
Disadvantages are:
-too short articles on difficult topics
-too much (for me) about CADs
-somewhat old (using pbuffers instead of FBOs)
P. S.
The link for source codes from the book doesn't work, use the following one: [...]

I posted a review before, but I decided again to change it. Everything I said I will repeat more or less.

There is a paper on OpenGL.org written by an author, and much of that paper's info is in the book. It is not a direct reprint though. I was disappointed because I had an immediate impression it was just a total reprint of a free document. Also, the book is not hand-on at all, you really have to know your way around OpenGL to implement the techniques. It's not a quick teach-yourself-OpenGL book.

Now, I came back to update my review, because the first few chapters are crammed full of info that is really, really good. Well worth the money for the book. If you really want to know OpenGL on the inside... this book is it. It's just alot of reading, and very little hands-on. And some info in here you can find on OpenGL.org, but much newer techniques are covered to.

So I bumped it back to 5 stars, and it is an honest review. It is really worth it for these deep chapters, not for code techniques. Don't buy it unless you really already have a good handle on GL you will not be able to figure much out.

This book gives the reader a peak into real-world projects and reveals work flow and creative process. It's a lot of fun too. It should be called After Effects @ PLAY.

So easy to understand it should be called "After Effects @ Play" but seriously it's got info from 11 pro's in the Motion Graphics Industry and if you aren't a pro, then this book will help all you "youtubers" out there to post some pretty amazing stuff.
I just recently purchased this book and read it all and gave some of the projects a whirl. I'm a big user and fan of After Effects so I say this book deserves a 5 Star.

Interesting projects and great authors. This book is actually a collection of 12 authors who each wrote a chapter. The projects are varied and each of the authors has a different style and experience to bring to the tutorials. Even though the authors are different, the editing and design of the book allows the book to have a cohesive feel.

I've been collecting shells for many years but i never thought of the complexity and perfection of their patterns! This book describes in a simple way the mechanisms that produce the surface decorations of shells. It takes reader in a fascinating trip in a world of algorithmic shapes and colors!

I came across this book at the Rhode Island School of Design library. As an artist I found it surprising that what I had considered to be just a beautiful pattern was actually an imprint of the pressure and movement of the waves upon the seashell. This insight was very thought provoking for me. Perhaps to biologists this is a normal and natural thing - but for an artist this kind of scientific approach with beautifully illustrated pages is a deeply moving experience. This book will definitely make you think twice about the objects that you take for granted - whether it's visually or scientifically. I strongly recommend this book for those who like intellectual challenges and who like to look at the world with fresh new eyes.

This book describes, using a computer, The geometry involved in the building of seashells and in particular the surface features. It shows the how and why of surface decorations found on several species of Mollusks. This is probably the only book to treat this subject and do so extensively expertly and comprahensively.

The book covers more than the Amazon APIs so I recommend it if you are interested in mashups in general. I'm very keen on JSON right now and was pleased to find that covered as well. I think the author is a very good programmer who has many clever ideas like using XSL to transform XML into JSON (although using Yahoo! Pipes is easier). I'd have to say that this is one of the few programming books I've read that presented some really ingenious solutions and creative project ideas. Most books just provide uninspiring "Hello World" examples.

If you want to learn the various ways in which you can use Amazon's Web Services, this is an excellent starting point. Shanahan goes beyond "mashups" in the strict Web 2.0 sense of the term; he looks at the various ways of supporting wireless devices, and the use of the S3 storage service. The only nits (so far - I'm still working through some of the material) are that he assumes the use of Microsoft tools, and he identifies the term "JSON" with one particular style of mashup using script retrieval. (JSON is a serialization scheme which can be used for many different use cases, including RESTful interactions.) But these are minor points; this is an excellent book - and a lot of fun, too.

If you want to build applications and mashups using the Amazon E-commerce and S3 APIs this book from Francis Shanahan is a great place to start. It begins with a good overview of the ECS services and then covers useful topics like XSLT, Ajax, JSON, and mobile. Good coverage of both the Amazon SOAP and REST APIs. Includes mashup examples using primarily Microsoft tools like C# that mix with Yahoo Maps, eBay, and YouTube.

One thing you'll get here but not in a lot of other comparable books are architecture diagrams for each project. This is particularly helpful for mashups where there's often lots of integration happening at multiple layers. The illustrations help solidly conceptualize what happens where.

I can't believe I waited so long to read this book -- it truly is a classic. This is the way AI should be done: by focusing on the right level of abstraction, situated above the level of neuroscience but below the level of simple input-output function mapping. Finally, a computer model that makes those first steps towards doing the same thing that people do.

True believers in those original goals of artificial intelligence take heart -- this book gives new hope to a field that has come to be dominated by engineering approaches that only work in special cases like the logic behind the cruise control switch in a car. Mitchell's model provides the fluidity and flexibility that is lacking from classical machine learning techniques.

Melanie Mitchell's analogy-making as perception is a remarkably original book. It documents an artificial intelligence project known as copycat, which was implemented as the author's PhD project under Douglas Hofstadter.

Copycat is unlike anything in artificial intelligence. It is not a symbolic system, neither a connectionist one. The major goal of the project is to study the nature of concepts. Concepts, as we all know, are flexible, context-sensitive creatures. For instance, DNA has nothing to do with a computer program, but there is a sense on which we can see DNA as a computer program that guides embrionary development. DNA can also be seen as a zipper, as it "zips down" in two parts (for cell reproduction). Still another view would be DNA as a will, for it carries valuable hereditary "property". Now, DNA is in truth just a molecule, and nothing else. The question is, how can we see the same thing (such as DNA) as so many different things? Moreover, how can these fluid context-sensitive concepts be implemented in rigid, rule-obeying computers?

To which the answer is: what we view is the abstract roles that DNA plays in embrionary development, cell division, and in individual reproduction. And this is the very idea of "Analogy-making as perception".

Well, not so fast. The copycat project is not designed to grasp such extremely complex subjects as DNA, but, on the other hand, it presents a computational architecture that suggests what the nature of concepts is like, and how flexible concepts may emerge from inflexible mechanisms.

Copycat can solve analogy problems such as abc->abd:ijk-> ?. But it is not restricted to trivial ones. Consider the following analogy: abc ->abd:xyz->?. How would you solve it? How do you think that copycat solves it?

Obviously, this project doesn't fit in very easily in classical artificial intelligence, as it attacks some of the most pervasive ideas of the field, such as the separation of perception and cognition. In fact, I think this book redefines the major questions of artificial intelligence (and although Mitchell does not state it, I think the copycat model does not fall prey to either the frame problem or to the symbol grounding problem).

It is very unfortunate that this is not one of the best-selling books in AI. But I believe that it will ultimately make its mark on the History of the field, if for no other reason than it simply is the right approach to genuine intelligence and authentic understanding.

Should one day Amazon.com let me give a 6-star to a book, but charge me a dollar for giving it, this is one that would definitely deserve to be such a 6-star.

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PS. I would also recommend Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; and Robert French's Subtlety of Sameness.

Since AI researchers are generally engineers, they historically did what engineers do: they broke up the mind in very clear-cut divisions, one for the perception of the things out there in the world, and another, symbolically, to do "abstract cogitation".

For deep reasons, this was an invalid move, but only a few could see it. Melanie surely could, for her highly original copycat project exhibits some of the best insights in Artificial Intelligence ever.

AI is still so much pervaded with the wrong ideas that this book will need to take some time to make its definitive mark on the history of the field.

If genuine understanding is ever to be built into a machine, understanding of the kind that Searle's gang will be forever denying, then it will come from an architecture similar to that proposed in this book.

Then again, I could turn out to be wrong. But let us let History decide on this issue.