Big Nerd Ranch Europe, provider of intensive
training classes for programmers, system
administrators and web developers, announced new
dates for OpenGL Bootcamp in Europe, featuring
instructor Jay Anderson and his co-instructor
Carsten Haubold, for April 20-24, 2009. This
intensive five-day class at the old monastery
Kloster Eberbach near Frankfurt, Germany is the
fastest way to master the ideas and techniques of
OpenGL programming by focusing on advanced level
visualization techniques and elevating the
materials beyond simply video game development
instruction.

Students signing up before March 16, 2009 apply
for the early bird fee and save ¤200.

In modern application development OpenGL has
become the standard-bearer in the visualization
of 2D and 3D images in a wide spectrum of fields,
from visually enhanced user experiences in
general, to medical research and pharmaceuticals,
rich data visualization, in addition to video
gaming. Today, everyone doing any work concerning
graphics must know OpenGL. No other graphic
visualization development environment comes close
to OpenGL’s scalability, portability and
cross-platform functionality.

All students attending the class will receive a
copy of the latest edition of “OpenGL Programming
Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL,
Version 2.1” (commonly referred to as the Red
Book) as the primary text for the class, as well
as extended lessons increased by 30-90 minutes of
hands-on exercises. The course requires no
previous experience in OpenGL, but for best
results, students should know a procedural
programming language like C and have a basic
understanding of linear algebra and vector
mathematics.

The five days of OpenGL Bootcamp are formatted to
provide the maximum impact in OpenGL training so
that, by the end of the week, students will
demonstrate mastery in the following key areas:

– creating 2D and 3D visualizations using OpenGL
– gaining a deeper theoretical understanding of
modern graphics development and the challenges
facing data visualization developers – writing
and implementing cross-platform OpenGL
visualizations – understanding the variety of GPU
programming methods and the way in which they can
enhance and give depth to a spectrum of
applications

The OpenGL class in April will be lead by
instructor Jay Anderson, who has done computer
graphics for over 45 years, and has developed
graphics applications with an emphasis on
visualization in a scientific background. Jay has
lectured widely in the United States and Europe
and will be accompanied by Carsten Haubold, who
is an active member of the OpenGL community since
2000 and one of the two developers working on and
taking care of the famous NeHe OpenGL tutorials.
Carsten is also technical editor of the Book
“Beginning OpenGL Game Programming 2nd Edition”
which is the first book on OpenGL 3.0 to be
published in early 2009.

With Jay living on Mac OS X and Carsten using
Ubuntu Linux and Windows, students will receive
the best support during exercises, whatever
platform they prefer to work with.

Read more about OpenGL Bootcamp, including the
complete syllabus at
http://bignerdranch.com/classes/opengl.shtml. To
read more about our instructor Jay Anderson
please visit
http://bignerdranch.com/instructors/anderson.shtml
and about his co-instructor Carsten Haubold visit
http://bignerdranch.com/instructors/haubold.shtml.

The Big Nerd Ranch incorporates intensive
training classes for Unix and Mac OS X
programmers in a retreat setting outside
Frankfurt, Germany. Class price of ¤2800 (plus
19% VAT, if applicable) includes lodging, all
meals, original instruction materials, 24-hour
lab access, and transportation to and from the
Frankfurt airport. Students are encouraged to
bring independent projects to class, allowing for
input from classmates and individual instructor
attention. For more information, call +49 (931)
9911-485 or visit www.bignerdranch.com.