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Using Excel As a 3D Graphics Engine
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."
..because it's there?
You people that ask why on posts like this need to turn in your geek card. Geeks do this kind of stuff because we can. We like a challenge. We like to explore technology to its fullest to find out just how much it can do -- despite the fact that there aren't any practical applications for whatever we come up with. It's all about exploration and learning (and a little bit about showing off what we can do).
Because there was surely no productive results out of this. If he had used some open source (sorry) spreadsheet program at least he may have found and filed some bugs.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Back when I took graphics in college, it was made abundantly clear that all modern graphics are just large math problems solved in realtime. We did all sorts of work messing with transformation matrices and doing the math (sadly, since this was done by the CS department we did a lot less of the useful stuff and a lot more of the theoretical underpinnings that you don't technically need to know when actually programming something).
Anyway, the point is that Excel is reasonably well set up for doing the kind of math you need to do when making computer graphics and has vector output capabilities. It's a neat trick and something that would likely be useful in teaching the underpinnings (watching what happens as you tweak variables in a transformation matrix in realtime would have been very nice when I was taking my class).
I read the internet for the articles.
...why? Same reason others climb mountains.You can't take the sky from me...
Strange how much human accomplishment and progress comes from contemplation of the irrelevant. - Scott Kim.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
There's no such thing as "too much free time". My seventy six year old retired dad says he doesn't know how he ever found the time to work!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I might be missing the joke and taking this way to seriously, but I really cannot stand that attitude. I guess it's easy to push my buttons.
In wich deranged moral system is there some sort of duty that forces smart guys to spend all their available time on things useful for society?
(And who decides what is beneficial for society anyway?)
If his hoby was playing chess or collecting stamps or climbing mountains, would you say that he should spend his time on more useful things? If he could afford to spend a lot of time on those hobbies, why shouldn't he?
So why is it that every time someone does something cool and strange and for all purposes harmless, someone else always has to say "THIS GUY HAS WAY TOO MUCH FREE TIME"? Someone who, I might add, spends his time on slashdot?
Envy?
(I know I am envious, I wish I had the time and the determination to do a lot of these things. Considering that I am wasting time on slasdot, determination is what I am lacking more of)
nah, man - I think you missed something. I'm no programmer, but he makes the point that what he's doing here is a different type of programming. It allows him to lay out his program structure in two dimensions. Most (all?) code is laid out as a vertical thread of logical progressive statements, so this does seem different: Excel allows you to visually lay out the relationships between variable in a spatial way.
It not like he's claiming to have discovered this: this is the fundamental reason why spreadsheets have been used for well over a decade - they give you a logical map. You could lay out a spreadsheet as a single list of mathematical operations, but it would obviously suck in comparison to a a spreadsheet. He's just pointing out this is interesting to think of in terms of a programming paradigm.
(YAY! I used 'paradigm' and didn't sprout horns or anything!)
Cheers!
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
FAIL.
you can't have extra spaces in a CSV, unless you drive a " Porsche".
The answers are the same.
--
make install -not war
All those hard workers are content to just do it the long way.
Heck with an ID as low as mine...
Old != Smart
"Eastern Europe" is not some nebulous region with fuzzy borders on a map, with "Here there be coders" written in illuminated calligraphy in the very middle of a vast, blank area.
This guy's email address is in Hungary which means he's probably Hungarian. That's a country directly between Austria and Bulgaria, south of Poland and north of Greece (indirectly) which, depending on where you draw the Eastern boundary of Europe, may or may not be in "Eastern" Europe. It lies almost precisely between the western border of France and the Eastern border of Ukraine, the northern border of Poland and the southern border of Greece (excluding Cyprus), making this guy more of a Central European.
French coders are French, German coders are German. What makes a Hungarian coder "Eastern European"?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
You're just jealous. 3D pipeline in software is cool. 3D pipeline in Excel is even cooler! I try to avoid using office apps, but it's pretty impressive what Excel can do and how people think of ways to use it. Maybe Microsoft can advertise it (3D pipeline inside). ;-)
"I thought geeks bit the heads off live chickens and nerds pushed technology to to the limit."
I guess I prefer the newer usage of "geek" over the older when applied to me. "Hacker" has changed too. Eh, try calling someone "niggardly" and see what happens. I sometimes wish English evolved a little more slowly, at least as far as usage of existing words.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.