Brace yourself for a fun challenge: build a photorealistic 3D renderer from scratch! It's easier than you think. In just a couple of weeks, build a ray-tracer that renders beautiful scenes with shadows, reflections, brilliant refraction effects, and subjects composed of various graphics primitives: spheres, cubes, cylinders, triangles, and more. With each chapter, implement another piece of the puzzle and move the renderer that much further forward. Do all of this in whichever language and...

Unlock the secrets to creating random mazes! Whether you're a game developer, an algorithm connoisseur, or simply in search of a new puzzle, you're about to level up. Learn algorithms to randomly generate mazes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and dimensions. Bend them into Moebius strips, fold them into cubes, and wrap them around spheres. Stretch them into other dimensions, squeeze them into arbitrary outlines, and tile them in a dizzying variety of ways. From twelve little algorithms, you...

The classic guide to how computers work, updated with new chapters and interactive graphics"For me, Code was a revelation. It was the first book about programming that spoke to me. It started with a story, and it built up, layer by layer, analogy by analogy, until I understood not just the Code, but the System. Code is a book that is as much about Systems Thinking and abstractions as it is about code and programming. Code teaches us how many unseen layers there...

A primer on the underlying technologies that allow computer programs to work. Covers topics like computer hardware, combinatorial logic, sequential logic, computer architecture, computer anatomy, and Input/Output.Many coders are unfamiliar with the underlying technologies that make their programs run. But why should you care when your code appears to work? Because you want it to run well and not be riddled with hard-to-find bugs. You don't want to be in the news be...

"This library is useful for practitioners, and is an excellent tool for those entering the field: it is a set of computer vision algorithms that work as advertised."-William T. Freeman, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyLearning OpenCV puts you in the middle of the rapidly expanding field of computer vision. Written by the creators of the free open source OpenCV library, this book introduces you to computer vision...

Get ready to create distributed sensor systems and intelligent interactive devices using the ZigBee wireless networking protocol and Series 2 XBee radios. By the time you're halfway through this fast-paced, hands-on guide, you'll have built a series of useful projects, including a complete ZigBee wireless network that delivers remotely sensed data.Radio networking is creating revolutions in volcano monitoring, performance art, clean energy, and consumer electronics. As you follow t...

The Hardware Hacking Handbook takes you deep inside embedded devices to show how different kinds of attacks work, then guides you through each hack on real hardware.Embedded devices are chip-size microcomputers small enough to be included in the structure of the object they control, and they’re everywhere—in phones, cars, credit cards, laptops, medical equipment, even critical infrastructure. This means understanding their security is critical. The Hardware Hacking...

For anyone who has ever wondered how computers solve problems, an engagingly written guide for nonexperts to the basics of computer algorithms.Have you ever wondered how your GPS can find the fastest way to your destination, selecting one route from seemingly countless possibilities in mere seconds? How your credit card account number is protected when you make a purchase over the Internet? The answer is algorithms. And how do these mathematical formulations transl...

Scratch is a fun, free, beginner-friendly programming environment where you connect blocks of code to build programs. While most famously used to introduce kids to programming, Scratch can make computer science approachable for people of any age. Rather than type countless lines of code in a cryptic programming language, why not use colorful command blocks and cartoon sprites to create powerful scripts?In Learn to Program with Scratch, author Majed Marji uses Scratch to ex...

If you want a basic understanding of computer vision’s underlying theory and algorithms, this hands-on introduction is the ideal place to start. You’ll learn techniques for object recognition, 3D reconstruction, stereo imaging, augmented reality, and other computer vision applications as you follow clear examples written in Python.Programming Computer Vision with Python explains computer vision in broad terms that won’t bog you down in theory. You get complete code samples...

Make the most out of your Roblox experience with The Advanced Roblox Coding Book—now updated with new content, including updated avatar customization, movement and animation updates, and more!The Advanced Roblox Coding Book provides next-level, beginner-friendly guidance for middle-grade readers using Roblox Studio and Lua code to create interactive games. Players will learn where and how to use scripts, how to introduce variables and customize gr...

Getting mixed signals in your signals and systems course?The concepts covered in a typical signals and systems course are often considered by engineering students to be some of the most difficult to master. Thankfully, Signals & Systems For Dummies is your intuitive guide to this tricky course, walking you step-by-step through some of the more complex theories and mathematical formulas in a way that is easy to understand.From Laplace Transforms to ...