December 1999
Volume 17 Number 12
GRAPHICS AND IMAGING
Visualizing Depth Images
Dwayne Phillips
A couple of simple transforms can make depth information really stand out in a picture.
Simple Templates for OpenGL
Giovanni Bavestrelli
There's more than one way to wrap an interface. Templates make a particularly thin and useful wrapper.
FEATURES
Manipulating Sparse Matrices
Mark C. Peterson
Many matrix computations involve far more zeros than nonzero element values. A representation that squeezes out zeros can really speed up several critical operations.
Executing a Class Member in Its Own Thread
Allen Broadman and Eric Shaw
Creating a separate thread to execute a member function call is a messy business that's often necessary. It's a task well worth encapsulating.
Extending <limits> for Type Safety
Gary Powell
The new header <limits> can do a lot for you — if you use it, and if you supplement it a bit.
BOOK REVIEW
C++ for Java Programmers
Reviewed by Marc Briand
Is Java a stepping stone or millstone when it comes to learning C++? A close read through this book tells us it is a little of both.
C/C++ CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Standard C/C++: Frequently Answered Questions: STL
P. J. Plauger
Here are some of the things you might want to know about using STL with Standard C++, but maybe haven't discovered the need to ask.
The Journeyman's Shop: Containing Heterogeneous Types
Pete Becker
Run-time type identification is a powerful, but expensive, mechanism. It should be used sparingly.
Post-Mortem Debunker: Just In Time?
Stan Kelly-Bootle
Never one to rush a good cataclysm, Stan weighs in at the midnight hour with his own take on Y2K.