In her work, Ms. Kurachi's seeks to traverse the field of CG employing a primarily theoretical approach. Upfront, this may disappoint those who were expecting lots of readily made HLSL/GLSL/C++ code that they copy&paste into their existing codebases. Indeed, there is in fact no actual code to be found, with the analysis focusing primarily on the algorithmic side of things. Moreover, in order for one to derive utility from the book, a working mastery of calculus and to a lesser extent linear algebra is somewhat needed (we are of the opinion that this is even under the bare minimum threshold for the computer graphics practitioner, but sadly maths aversion is quite common). There are no extensive proofs provided, which makes sense given the text's extents, but we found ourselves going back to referenced texts for some bits.

Most topics of interest in rendering are covered, with BRDFs, HDR imaging, Image Based Lighting, Radiance Transfer or Subsurface Scattering all making a showing. It is noteworthy that the focus is not necessarily on approaches valid for realtime rendering. In the same key, there is a slight bias towards raytracing as a rendering method, with rasterization taking a backseat. This is quite fitting considering that the main consideration in the text often seems to be offline rendering. A treasure trove hidden near the back cover is the reference list, which provides an abundance of interesting papers and volumes.

If we were to pick two particular chapters that we enjoyed, those would be chapters 8 and 10, which deal with Reflectance reconstruction and Radiance transfer. Overall, the writing style is enjoyable if formal - this should be par for the course for those familiar with the whole academic article / technical write-up hoopla. If we were to critique something about the "implementation" itself (we're mean, critique filled bastards, as you well know by now), it would be the typos that made it through the fine comb of editing - they are definitely not numerous, but somewhat noticeable in places. A second revision is likely to eradicate all. We'd also have loved if a hardcover version existed, albeit we understand how that might've pushed prices up.

Overall, Ms. Kurachi's text is one we'd warmly recommend to those familiar with the field, who want to have nicely put together cross-section on hand. Think of it as Realtime Rendering focused mostly on the strictly theoretic aspects, and with the Realtime component significantly slimmed down. It's definitely not for Harry Potters though, as we can imagine those at the beginning of their pixel lighting trek being discouraged by some of the more complex elements.