Best graphic & multimedia programming books according to redditors

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Third-Dimension-Dimensions-Scientific/dp/0716750252

I'm going to fall back on a couple of non-fiction books that are mind-blowing, although not necessarily on the same scale you're talking about.

On germs, plagues and bio-containment:

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston:

http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Zone-Terrifying-True-Story/dp/0385495226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266864059&sr=8-1

The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett:

http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases-Balance/dp/0140250913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266864094&sr=1-1

I read both of these books back to back and it's like reading the same story first covered by the National Enquirer (Hot Zone) and then again by the New York Times (Coming Plague). It's a fascinating look at disease distribution and protection. The Hot Zone is a light easy read that's more sensationalist than scientific, the Coming Plague is the polar opposite, but both are good reads.

Road Fever by Tim Cahill:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Fever-Tim-Cahill/dp/0394758374/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266864207&sr=1-1

Guy is hired by GM for a promotional stunt. Drive their new truck from the tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska as fast as he can. The problems he has getting through South and Central America are amazing, and not just culturally, politically.

Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O'Hanlon:

http://www.amazon.com/Into-Heart-Borneo-Redmond-OHanlon/dp/0394755405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266864285&sr=1-1

Take your average academic natural history book reviewer and throw him in the jungle for a month! It will be great!

I like these books:
> Expert Python Programming practices
> Python in Practice: Create Better Programs Using Concurrency, Libraries, and Patterns

My college GIS 1 textbook was Introductory Geographic Information Systems and I found it very helpful. I keep it on my desk at work and reference it occasionally. It gives a brief overview of Python but nothing to really sink your teeth into - for that I'd recommend Python Scripting for ArcGIS. Hope that's helpful!

GIS textbooks like "Getting to know ArcGIS" and the "GIS Tutorials" series On Amazon all come with a 6 month trial of ArcGIS 10.3 if you don't have access to ArcGIS.

I also agree with Kamelasa, it's WAAY easier to learn Python as it relates to GIS coding, because they're more "specialized" Python scripts. I would look for a textbook on Amazon, then work on a chapter a week. Plus, having the reference material there for later makes it easier...or you can just sell it back to Amazon when you're done.

My recommended path for you:

1. Work through Getting to Know ArcGIS to understand basic GIS concepts. This book comes with a 1-year ArcMap trial. Some may recommend you use ArcPro but if you are working with large datasets, which is likely as a developer, I would recommend using ArcMap as it performs a lot better in most cases.
   
2. Complete Penn State's GEOG 485 to get to know ArcPy, ESRI's scripting package for Python.
   
3. Complete Penn State's GEOG 863 to get familiar with the ArcGIS Javascript API for making web maps programmatically.
   
   Penn State's courses are free and you can view all of their content without registering for anything. There are a few other courses that would be helpful to you through Penn State, but those two should definitely be the first ones you take. Here's the link to the rest of their open courses if you are interested. I'd also really recommend learning some other data analysis packages for Python like numpy and pandas as well as a database interface like psycopg2.

Find and read everything you can by Dr Cynthia Brewer. Start with Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users. I've had to re-buy most of her stuff two or three times as they mysteriously disappear from wherever I'm working.

Have a look at typebrewer, it's tools are broken right now, but the sites a good read.

Have a read of some it the stuff from the Google Maps blogs, and the blogs about Google Maps.

There's a couple of good YouTube channels out there talking about graphic design for web site or UI coders. While they're not about maps, most of the concepts are very relevant.

WebGL 2 is OpenGL ES3 basically

So, here some other helpful links:
https://learnopengl.com/

http://docs.gl/

You just have to reason about the c functions to the js functions.

Here a few more links:

https://webglfundamentals.org/

And a good book IMO:

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Graphics-WebGL-interactive-applications-ebook/dp/B07GVNQLH5

Seminal work: https://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Machine-Humanities-Charles-Travis/dp/1589483685 opened my eyes to the depth and nuance that GIS brings.

Analyzing languagejones

• comments per month: 51.4 ^I ^have ^an ^opinion ^on ^everything
  
• posts per month: 1.5 ^lurker
  
• favorite sub linguistics
  
• favorite words: you're, really, speakers
  
• age 0 years 11 months
  
• profanity score 0.6% ^Gosh ^darnet ^gee ^wiz
  
• trust score 77.3%
  
  
• Fun facts about languagejones
  
  • "I'm a native speaker of AAVE because of my childhood speech community."
    
  • "I've studied that has a written tradition."
    
  • "I've only ever heard people claim "two negatives make a positive" and then give an example of multiplying negatives."
    
  • "I am very careful to separate out of my data."
    
  • "I've seen look like they were made in R, using the R Color Brewer package."
    
  • "I'm a geospatial n00b, so I started with this book)."
    
  • "I've never seen it as "linalg." I like that, but I'm uncertain how to pronounce it."
    
  • "I am just in the process of learning some French equivalents."
    
  • "I am not familiar with the concept of unconscious bias."
    
  • "I've got a speaker who has just a long nasalized schwa for "I don't know." There is, however, a nice pitch contour."
    
  • "I've been talking with Dr."
    

> Most all entry jobs require experience.

Are you trying to get an entry job into natural resources or something like a GIS technician? I can see it being pretty difficult to get a strictly GIS related job if you only had two classes at university.

Learn as much as you can from tutorials online. Try out QGIS. See what books your local library can get you. Work on your own projects.

Since you don’t have an expensive piece of paper that says you know GIS, your best bet is to start putting together a portfolio of your projects for potential employers to review.

If you can’t get access to Esri products through the university, you can get this tutorial book for ArcMap 10.3 for $32 and it comes with a 6 month trial license. There’s also this one for ArcGIS Pro (Esri’s new flagship software) for $62. I would assume it comes with a trial license as well.

If you do buy a tutorial book, always buy new. The trial license is just a code in the book to activate it. If you buy used there’s no way to know if that code has been used already or not.

To be completely I honest, it is adequate work for a GIS class and I have seen worse cartography from "trained" GIS professionals. I use to work for an assessor office in a US city with nearly 250k people and the IT/GIS and planning depts gave maps of poor quality to a well known non-profit for a presentation. I am no cartography expert but it is one of the easiest things to criticize/fix for most maps. If I count my grad school job, I have been working with GIS for 6 years and I seen/made plenty of bad maps from cartographic point of view. Probably most in this subreddit. I think good cartography can make a newbie GIS professionals stand out if they are looking for work samples.

If you have the money:

Cartographer's Toolkit: Colors, Typography, Patterns

Designing Better Maps: A Guide for GIS Users

Cartographic folks might use these resources: http://colorbrewer2.org/ , http://typebrewer.org/ and https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Better-Maps-Guide-Users/dp/1589484401/

Especially PSU students.

The good news is that you don't need to know how to code to use ArcGIS. As others mentioned, if you start with some books, you can learn the basic tasks. I don't think it would be too hard to learn the basic functionality-- I learned to use the software when I worked at a botanical garden one summer. What takes longer is learning to use if efficiently/correctly; you may run into some snags at the beginning. If there are already some GIS resources and staff who know GIS at the workplace, then it's pretty feasible. It might be a bit harder if you're starting from scratch.

My favorite book to suggest is Getting to Know ArcGIS. Sometimes, books come with free short-term software licenses! A local university may also have books and the software on some of their computers. There are a bunch of free online resources and short courses as well. Good luck!

Mathematica, not matlab. Considering that Mathematica's "manual" weighs 5lbs and costs a hundred or two and one can understand the point on the link though...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mathematica-Book-Fifth-Edition/dp/1579550223/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Contact ESRI and reqest a student copy of ArcGIS, then get this book (might have the software included???):
https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Geographic-Information-Systems-ArcGIS/dp/1118159802

It has lots of screenshots, and clear, concise instructions.

I've had two separate intro GIS books. Jensen & Jensen and Chang. I preferred Chang but J&J has a better price.

My point was that statistics 101 doesn't always apply to geographic information analysis because what makes GIA interesting is usually some form of autocorrelation (which is not something I personally came up with, nor something terribly controversial afaik; I'm a geospatial n00b, so I started with this book).

I've been reading up on GIA, and thought it was interesting that random processes generate nonuniform point patterns, and that sampling those points further amplifies the appearance of (seemingly nonrandom) patterns, before we even discuss first- and second-order effects. Because I'm very interested in answering questions about language use by using Twitter, I'm now working on figuring out what precisely I can and cannot do with my data.

If you have advice about how to approach spatial statistics and geographic information analysis, especially favorite books or methods particularly applicable to linguistic questions, I would love to know more.

Into the Heart of Borneo - Redmond O'Hanlon

https://www.amazon.com/Into-Heart-Borneo-Redmond-OHanlon/dp/0394755405

this will be tough to avoid any weight loss at all, but protein bars and nuts is all i can think of! also, read this book!!

Books on Fractal Geometry tend to have pretty pictures:

Indra's Pearls: The Vision of Felix Klein by David Mumford et al.

Beauty of Fractals by Heinz-Otto Peitgen et al

Fractal Geometry of Nature by Benoit Mandelbrot

For what it's worth New Kind of Science by Stepeh Wolfram has tons of pretty pictures, even if the content is dubious.



you might also want to checkout the Non-Euclidean Geometry for babies and other similar titles.

Python in Practice is nice because it not only covers some advanced python techniques, but it also covers general design programs such as flyweights, adapters and abstract factories.

be aware the code samples provided are python 3, however you can generally figure out how to implement the examples in python 2.

>https://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Graphics-WebGL-interactive-applications-ebook/dp/B07GVNQLH5

you are the best. thank you!

Academic GIS --> Chrisman's Exploring Geographic Information Systems is a great, comprehensive look at why and how we manipulate geographic information on computers. It's completely software agnostic (applies just as well to QGIS as ArcMap) and talks about the reasoning behind GIS operations. Don't look to this for information about LiDAR or inverse Kriging, but a solid intro to information science via geography.

This book is good. There was another book that I learned really well on but all I know about it is that it has a horse on the cover. If you can find it based on just that kudos to you. They are both for CS3 but all the principles are the same.

Have a look at Pro Python by Marty Alchin (if you're learning Python 2), or Python in Practice if you're learning Python 3.

I've never been to one of these live courses, but I doubt they are any more valuable then just looking at free videos online and reading books. The main advantages to books/videos is you can go at your own pace, they are packed full of more information than can possible be conveyed/received in a short live course, and they are going to be MUCH cheaper.

A couple of good books to check out:

For learning to interact with ArcGIS software: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Know-ArcGIS-Michael-Law-ebook/dp/B01DK3SWO4/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=&dpID=41J4z6t5nqL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

GIS Basics: https://www.amazon.com/GIS-Fundamentals-Geographic-Information-Systems/dp/1506695876/ref=pd_sbs_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1506695876&pd_rd_r=WM4VTBZR7PNZM326YA47&pd_rd_w=3jJcZ&pd_rd_wg=8MKvp&psc=1&refRID=WM4VTBZR7PNZM326YA47&dpID=51oUfZ5VUCL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=detail

For ArcPy/Python: https://www.amazon.com/Python-Scripting-ArcGIS-Paul-Zandbergen/dp/1589483715/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517942628&sr=1-1&keywords=python+for+arcgis

There are also plenty of free resources to learn to use QGIS: http://www.qgistutorials.com/en/

The important thing to focus on from any of these sources though, is to learn the concepts, not the processes. The GIS concepts are the same across different softwares, platforms, programming languages, etc.

We used this book. There's a 2015 PDF floating around somewhere. SOLIDWORKS 2016: A Tutorial Approach, 3rd Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BJ9EJOS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_o0MszbS0DCX92

No problem, python was my favorite class while I was in school, haha. My professor actually has a pretty good textbook (what an amazing rarity, a textbook pushed on students for the professor's own personal gain that's actually good). Looks like it can be rented for $30 through amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Python-ArcGIS-Laura-Tateosian/dp/3319183974/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539568587&sr=8-2&keywords=python+for+gis

​

It has a lot of step by step, basic instructions on all sorts of stuff for ArcPy. There's also a lot of exercises to do if you're so inclined.

My condolences on the business (been there, lived through that). Some good, advanced Python 3 books include:

Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language (2nd Edition)

A subset of the above - Advanced Python 3 Programming Techniques


Python in Practice: Create Better Programs Using Concurrency, Libraries, and Patterns

If someone is really interested in design practices in Python, here is a great book for that
Python in Practice by Mark Summerfield

The original paper: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=7D041E4B27365771B6EB7EAA7022FE7D?doi=10.1.1.21.3719&rep=rep1&type=pdf

I gather it's also published in this book (along with loads of other relevant things): https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fractal-Images-Heinz-Otto-Peitgen/dp/0387966080/

Blending in a secondary heightmap has been a favorite trick of mine for these sorts of things as well. I explain more about the approaches I've taken in the past in another comment on this post. Most of what I was doing was focused on creating discrete, stand-alone continents + surrounding smaller islands, or individual islands / island chains, not whole-world-maps. The idea was that I could build up the world of my games incrementally by focusing each one on a small region of the world and then later decide how those pieces fit together and how many there ought to be. Sadly, my game studio wasn't successful enough to pursue that idea in much depth.

Your code looks awesome! I don't quite have the time to dive in and follow along with what it's doing in depth right now, but it seems like a fair bit of the "magic" is in _filterRelief, yes?

(Random aside -- One thing to keep in mind, if you're planning on using your results in a game: If you want this stuff to be efficient in terms of GPU usage, you'll want to clip your texture to an even power-of-two at the end of synthesis, otherwise GPUs will pad it out to the next power-of-two size on each edge. Lots of wasted VRAM!)

I'd just finished Giles Milton's - Nathaniel's Nutmeg and then shortly after that I was inspired to read Redmond O'Hanlon's - Into the Heart of Borneo after meeting his daughter.
I discussed them with friends and someone recommended The Poisonwood Bible and it never even occurred to me that it was a novel.

As I said, incredibly embarrassed.

You understand how a street map of your town relates to the real world, right? And how a map of the states relates to their location on the earth's surface? Those are reference maps, and what's "important" is the feature you're trying to find.

So do you need help with the specialized symbols used on some particularly technical map, or the basic metaphor that a map is merely a simplified view of the ground, looking straight down?

Maybe look at the first few pages of the Army's technical manual on mapreading. There's also this college textbook.