So the college semester is getting close to ending and I'm looking at some free time. It's been a few years since I've done any 3D coding and I'm looking to get back into it. A few years ago when I started to with Directx 9.0, I was able to get some pretty nice results, but I will admit my math knowledge was lacking. I enjoy reading papers on new techniques in the 3D community, but when the math formulai show themselves, I'm quickly confused at what I'm looking at.I'm looking for a nice math primer(book, online articles, ebook) that has some content relative to 3D. It would be nice if this book coincided with 3d techniques such as bump mapping(tangent spaced stuff) et cetera. Obviously I've used Google and have found nice content, but it's mostly small articles here and there. I've got a nice background with basic algebra, but that's about it.

Thanks.

[Edited by - fitfool on December 2, 2010 12:21:52 PM]

Buy a good book on Linear Algebra. For understanding the basic 3D stuff, Linear Algebra I (101? I don't know the US naming system for Lectures) should be sufficient.

You also mentioned tangent space. For Bump mapping you won't need such an indept knowledge, but if you really want to understand Tangent space, you're probably best of studying maths or theoretical physics. Or buy a ton of books ( Calculus & Linear Algebra -> Topology/Geometry -> Differential Geometry ).

But most articles on Bump mapping use "cute" math to describe it anyways and use the term tangent space very sloppy, so no need to bother yourself with all that ;)

I only know good german books, which I doubt would be helpful in this case..

Pauls online notes. Free full course notes in :

Algebra
Calculus 1,2,3
Linear Algebra
Differential Equations

And all in online and PDF form. I think this guy is great for putting this up.

I can recommend http://www.khanacademy.org/ which have excellent teaching material on math.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. They look very promising. Also, don't be afraid of providing more. You can never have too many math resources :)

It makes sense to focus on Calculus and Linear Algebra. You can browse basic problems related to 3D modeling from the Schaum's Solved Problems series. Good online resource on Calculus is also available at http://www.math24.net/.