First Draft

GAME2302 Mathematical Applications for Game Development

Preface

Table of Contents

General

This module is the preface to a series of modules that constitute the class lecture notes for a course titled GAME2302 Mathematical Applications for Game Development that I teach at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas.

Course description

The official course description is: "Presents applications of mathematics and science in game and simulation programming. Includes the utilization of matrix and vector operations, kinematics, and Newtonian principles in games and simulations. Also covers code optimization."

Prerequisites

The prerequisite for the course is Math 1316, the description of which reads partially as follows: "... includes the study of trigonometric functions and their applications, trigonometric identities and equations, vectors, and the complex number system."

Accessibility

In developing the material for this course, I am making every reasonable effort to assure that the course is accessible and meaningful for sighted, blind, and visually impaired students alike using standard screen readers, refreshable Braille displays, and standard embossing equipment or techniques.

During my 18+ years as a college professor, I have developed the materials for many courses and have taught thousands of students using those materials. Some of those students have been blind or visually impaired (VI). Although I have modified the course materials for several courses to accommodate blind and VI students, this will be my first attempt at developing new course materials from the ground up that are designed to accommodate blind students, VI students, and sighted students using the same course materials.

The primary barriers for blind and VI students in a mainstream technical course such as this are images, drawings, diagrams, and equations. I plan to make those elements as accessible as practical.

Images

To begin with, I will use very few if any images of the type that fall into the category of photography. However, I plan to make substantial use of other online resources, such as Vector Math for 3D Computer Graphics. Many of those resources will contain images and other non-accessible materials. With regard to the images in those resources, I will provide supplementary descriptions of the images and when practical, will provide a schematic line drawing that illustrates the main points of the image.

Drawings and diagrams

Wherever practical, SVG drawing files will be provided in addition to, and sometimes in lieu of drawings and diagrams in the body of the text. This applies both to drawings and diagrams that I create and drawing and diagrams in other online resources that I incorporate into the course by reference.

The SVG files that I will provide can be

Although not released when this material was originally written, I am aware of a soon to be released program that will form a bridge between SVG files and some embossers that are not normally SVG compatible. That work is being done by someone other than me.

Equations

Equations will be presented using programming format, such as JavaScript format (see the module titled Resources). Equations in this format are accessible to blind and VI students using standard screen reader and refreshable Braille tools and are also readily usable by sighted students as well.

Navigation

I will also make extensive use of HTML headers, bookmarks, and internal links to make it easier for blind and VI students to use their screen readers to navigate the documents.

Resources

See the module titled Resources for a list of online resources for this course.

Miscellaneous

This section contains a variety of miscellaneous information.

Housekeeping material
  • Module name: Preface
  • File: Math1000.htm

Affiliation: I am a professor of Computer Information Technology at Austin Community College in Austin, TX.

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