[metapost] math resources for MP

[Larry Siebenmann]

Subject was: Re: [tex-live] mpost bugs

FARIN Gerald, Curves and surfaces for CAGD, Morgan-Kaufmann,
(even an early edition is worthwhile for metapost). This is
a much used textbook by now in its 5th or 6th edition.

European intermediate math texts of a century ago contain
chapters on plane curves and surfaces that may be more
relevant than a modern work on NURBs.

I recently picked up one at a flea market by Henri VOGT
(Nancy) called ``'El'ements de Math'ematiques Sup'erieures''
Vuillbert Paris (1901). Taco should pick up a couple of
books like that in Dutch.

Much of basic geometry from Euclid on impinges on MP. What
came before 1900 seems to me more vital to MP than what has
come since. With just one (huge) exception: the basic control
point language for polynomial curves discovered by de
Casteljau and develloped by B'ezier and many others. Farin
covers that well.

The fact that Knuth and Hobby used bezier cubics when they
could well have adopted NURBs of arbitrary degree was a
deliberate decision...

Cheers

Laurent S.