is this book outdated these days?

[wenxiwu777]

Hi, If I have nothing background in Computer Graphics but I really am interested in it, Should I read this book? Ray tracing from the ground up? I've heard a lot online, say this one is outdated, like the Phone render model is used, I am just wondering: should I read the PBRT directly ??? What's your opinion ?

[libingzeng]

Hi Placido, sorry for late reply. I'd like to say that PBRT should not be the first choice for a beginner, because it may be too complex for beginner, even though it contains much more up-to-date algorithms. On the other hand, I don't think the book, Ray tracing from the ground up (RTGU), is outdated. As you mentioned some reflection models, like Phong, seems to be too simple now, but I think of them as the basis of state-of-the-art models. The most important reason for recommending RTGU is that it's easy to understand and readers can build basic concepts of computer graphics through the book.

[qinzhiqiang163]

In my opinion, the program structure of this book is very good and can be used as a project of your development architecture.The basics of the book, the first twelve chapters, are pretty good.I analyzed the book from a code perspective.

[wenxiwu777]

Thank your for you both, your answers are helpful. My plan is to read this book throughly first then try to integrate some state-of-art features from PBRT into the framework of RTGU like oren-ayar model for lambertain and change its lighting model to cook to see if it really works.