About the Author

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Peter Kovach has been involved in computer software and hardware development since the mid-1970s. Early on—after becoming intrigued with the initial Colossal Cave text adventure—Peter began developing text-based adventures. When the first home computers were introduced, he was hooked. He bought every type of computer that came out—several Tandy computers, a Color Computer, a Commodore Pet, an Ohio Scientific, an Apple, and the Exidy Sorcerer. Most of these machines had between 4 KB and 16 KB of memory, so developing graphics games on them was a challenge—but the Exidy Sorcerer, with its S-100 bus and 800 x 600 resolution, made the challenge fun.

Peter received his interdisciplinary degree in 1983 in computer science and business, with a focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. During college, he created a robot (that looked a little like R2-D2 from Star Wars) that had two unique arms: one with a rotating end effecter and articulated shoulder and elbow, and the other with a multifingered hand. The fun part was using an acoustic sensor for mapping the room and the planning program for determining the best path to a target location, replanning as new obstacles were located.

His first paying job was as an engineer developing robotic driverless vehicles, 3D simulators for military air (such as F15, F16, and Apache helicopter), land, and sea vehicles (submarines), and expert/learning systems (using Symbolics machines running Lisp and Silicon Graphics machines running GL). After 11 years in various levels of development and project management, he was eager to begin pushing the envelope in 3D virtual world development. After starting a company with a partner to develop 3D product prototyping using OpenGL on various Silicon Graphics platforms, he became vice president of R&D at Virtual Express, Inc. This company designed a series of virtual reality exercise equipment platforms (including a stair climber, a ski machine, and an exercise bike) that presented users a 3D view of the virtual world using head tracking. He currently works at Medtronic, where he is the project lead developing programmable, implantable medical devices that use a next-generation graphical user interface.

Peter has continued to work on 3D simulations and game development. He began writing articles and books on 3D game development a few years ago, focusing on DirectX from the time it was introduced because it was such an excellent choice for PC-based game development. He is also a partner in the company Head Tapper Software (www.headtappersoftware.com), a company focusing on state-of-the-art game engine development and founded by William Chin. In addition, Peter teaches classes on DirectX to help spread the word of its power and ease of use.

Peter enjoys woodworking, the outdoors, scuba diving, trapshooting, and a multitude of other hobbies he never has time to do anymore. He lives in Fridley, Minnesota, with his wife, Monica, and his daughter, Shannon.