High Dynamic Range Imaging: Acquisition, Display, and Image-Based Lighting (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Graphics) [ハードカバー]

Finally we have the first book on High Dynamic Range Imaging or "HDRI". With a very general title like this you might be left wondering what is exactly covered within this book, and this review will help to answer that question. It's surprising that this is the first book on HDRI - the technique of shooting HDRIs and using it to achieve photorealistic results has been an indispensable tool in the film and computer graphics industry for years. Recently many software developers have integrated HDRI support into their software making it even easier than before to use this advanced technique. We even have HDRI capable cameras and real-time HDRI appearing in computer games. So for people wishing to break into this field, this book is long overdue.

Please keep in mind that this review is being performed from an artist's perspective, hence I am unable to provide much useful information regarding the more technical aspects of this book, of which there are many! For this I have spoken to one of the authors, Greg Ward, who has provided us with a more detailed insight.

The book is a quality hardcover tome of information containing healthy numbers of full color images, formulas and graphs. It also comes with a DVD full of useful resources, the contents of which are outlined below. While most chapters have a short introductory paragraph that can be understood by the layman or artist, they quickly move into the realm of highly complex formulas and code. If you're expecting this book to have some tutorials on lighting and rendering a HDR image in 3dsmax or Lightwave you're looking at the wrong book. The sections that do cater for the artist are mainly available online anyway, along with numberless websites that offer easy to read, quick and dirty tutorials and how-to's.

The publisher's description of the audience says the book is for anyone who works with images, but if you are specifically a photographer or a computer graphics artist then this book is very light on useful, practical information. If you read a chapter on removing lens flare or movement from your HDRIs it will be a technical explanation containing formulas and code, not a how-to on removing it using your favorite image editor.

Greg Ward has provided us with some more insight into who would find the book most useful, and what level of skill is required to understand and apply the concepts within:

"For the most part, our intended audience includes computer graphics students, teachers, researchers, and professionals, as well as special effects technical directors and game developers who are interested in applying HDR in their work. The book is geared towards computer graphics and vision graduate students and above (including professors, researchers, and professionals). It attempts to cover all of the fundamentals of HDR imaging and delves into some more advanced topics as well, but was not designed as a recipe book or anything of that sort. The reader is left with a fair amount of work to do to apply the concepts presented."

DVD

The book includes a DVD, which contains 4 gigs worth of resources that are easily navigated via a html browser. The contents include:

* HDR Images in various formats (very large number of images)

* Executables and a set of libraries for converting images between Radiance HDR and JPGHDR format developed by Greg Ward at SunnyBrook Tech.

* Source Code and exes for more than 20 tone reproduction operators.

* IBL tutorial using Radiance by Paul Debevec (very simple)

Other Notes

While this book mainly caters for the technically minded, there are several gems such as links for providers of leading edge HDRI capable still and video cameras, and a list of chrome ball manufacturers. HDRI hardware and software is also touched on as well as an interesting chapter on the human visual system.

Conclusion

For the artist or photographer we are still waiting for that first HDRI book, but for the computer scientist or programmer this book is definitely for you. It's hard to beat a book written about HDRI by the pioneers of HDRI.

This book is exactly what many people had hoped for, a high level book - that explains all the concepts beyond the basics- which can found elsewhere.

If your not already aware - people like Greg Ward and Paul Debevec invented the area of HDR and its early implementations, and their work and that of their colleagues, continues to be at the very leading edge of research in the area.

This is not a light weight glossy coffee table book - it is a factual, informative book that explains the logic and maths of HDR, while remaining really well written. It will become the default text on the subject for some time, and it is a valuable book for anyone serious about computer graphics and photography/imaging.

I could not recommend it more strongly for serious reader -but not a present for your Mum (unless she works at ILM or Pixar) !

This book covers the basic concepts (including just enough about human vision to explain why HDR images are necessary), image capture, image encoding (not as easy as it sounds), file formats, display techniques, tone mapping for lower dynamic range display (FAR from easy), and the use of HDR images and calculations in 3D rendering (which is very cool, even if you aren't working in 3D). The range and depth of coverage is good for the knowledgeable researcher as well as those who are just starting to learn about High Dynamic Range imaging.

I have found this book very useful in my own work. This is a great collection of the existing research on HDR imaging plus quite a bit of previously unpublished work from the authors. I have loaned or recommended the book to several coworkers to introduce them to the concepts behind HDR or help them in their own implementation of HDR imaging. (and so far, they're all liking the book, too)

If you are working with HDR images, think you will be, or wonder what all the fuss is about, you really should read this book.