In this edition of Book Review... ahem... sorry for the intro: For real though, "3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development" by Fletcher Dunn and Ian Parberry is quite a good buy. I have been working through the examples and as a Math Minor that hasn't done much Vector math in a few years, this is a great refresher course.
The first couple of chapters on coordinate systems is great for anyone who has never passed junior high algebra, it is a little light on the content but the examples are easy to understand. Don't expect any sort of Real analysis involved, purely discrete math here. Later chapters go into Vector based math (Dot product, cross product... etc) and actually gives some real world examples of when they might be handy to use in graphics programming.
Continuing from there, source code is provided for a basic vector class (not that you will really need this as most APIs provide an optimized version for your use automatically, but it never hurts to have an understanding of what the API is actually doing under the hood). Also there is quite a bit of information on Matrix math, linear algebra definitions for the math geeks out there as well as explanations for why you need to know how to do all of those complex transformations that your linear algebra teacher never had an explanation for (especially if you went to a non-tech school).
Finally, the last chapters include displacements in 3D, as well as good coverage on Geometric collision detection and algorithms for lighting and shading. Don't expect the book to cover advanced HLSL shaders or any sort of high end effects modeling, but this gives a great place to start for those looking to understand 3D graphics whom have only worked in 2D using Trig functions. Also, good reference for any 3D developers bookshelf. - 5 Stars
