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John Luke Garofalo
John Luke Garofalo

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How did you become proficient at geometry and vector math for web animations and/or VR?

Disclaimer: My question may be ambiguous because of the nature of it. I'm not entirely sure of what to concisely ask for so I'm attempting to describe it in the hopes that someone much smarter than I will translate.

I've been working in the frontend a lot throughout the past year and attempting to learn VR development on the side. As I've become more advanced, I've found that my desire to be able to create beautiful products, rather than mimic what other's have done, is predicated on the understanding of the geometry and physics of 3D objects and vectors. Many tutorials seem to gloss over this aspect of the process because the knowledge is probably assumed. I received my undergraduate degree in computer science so you'd think that I would've known this but I've never had the opportunity to connect the dots.*


"Wait... so I actually do need to know what the hypootmusnuse is?

Do you have any suggestions for resources to help someone become better equipped to begin creating things like svg drawings, css drawings/animations, and/or virtual reality environments/objects?

* For example, I was reading Steven M. LaValle's book on VR but I began to struggle when he said that I should be able to visualize quaternions by looking at the equation. I could easily follow the math for geometrical rotations, but I'm missing the foundational understanding of "why" the math is being applied.

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justinctlam profile image
Justin Lam

Read Real-Time Rendering 3rd edition. Hands down the best graphics book I've read as a graphics engineer. It explains the mathematics of 3D very well. realtimerendering.com/ has many resources under the Graphics Books section. Other than reading about it, you just have to practice, practice, and practice.

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John Luke Garofalo

Justin, you are the man! Thank you so much. I'm going to start start reading it asap