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Using Excel As a 3D Graphics Engine

Posted by kdawson on from the right-tool-for-the-job dept.

simoniker writes "Obviously whimsical but slightly mind-blowing — an Eastern European coder has published video and the Excel tables to get full 3D wireframe running in Microsoft Excel. He even has solid polygonal graphics running. This isn't an Easter Egg by the Excel creators. Rather, he's using formulas to output the graphics, using two different methods, and showing all the variables on-screen in real time as the 3D is created."

9 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. skip right to the video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6uiZj0FHM

    and

    http://www.youtube.com/user/GamasutraOfficial

  2. Download by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 1, Informative

    Here's the demos they show in the youtube videos.

    Press ALT+F8 to run and press ESC to stop. They work in Office 2007 in addition to whatever they had in the youtube videos (2k3 I assume).

  3. Demonstrations by Flammon · · Score: 2, Informative

    Demonstrations

    --
    ayottesoftware.com
  4. Re:Explains the flight simulator in Excel 97? by DarrylM · · Score: 3, Informative

    It can be used to land planes, too!

    (Obligatory Dilbert)

  5. Future of programming? by tkinnun0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The article is written tongue-in-cheek, but it raises a good point about sequential programming. When a processor has 80 cores, multi-threaded programming is going to be a nightmare. In contrast, the algorithms in the article can be scheduled optimally, given enough cores. And you, the programmer, get that for free. I wouldn't be surprised if spreadsheets became the preferred way to implement concurrent algorithms.

  6. Re:One can only ask... by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 3, Informative

    Aperture Science: We do what we can because we must.

    --
    There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
  7. Re:One can only ask... by FSWKU · · Score: 2, Informative

    Likely here...

    Be sure to enable the macros included and then Alt+F8, and run.

    --
    "So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
  8. No cake for you! by Torvaun · · Score: 3, Informative

    Aperture Science: We do what we must, because we can.
    For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead.

    --
    I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
  9. Re:One can only ask... by sg_oneill · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some of you guys are kind of missing the point here. What he hasn't done is writing a cheezy little vba app that does wireframe graphics, he's used the non-imperative logic in the actual spreadsheet to demonstrate that whats normally a linear 'pipeline' can be done perfectly well non-imperatively.

    Functional coding guys would 'get' the wow factor of it all, I guess.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.