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Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents

Posted by timothy on from the but-they-offered-it-a-blindfold dept.

CyberKnet writes "Some enterprising folks over at Google have collaborated via Google Documents to create holiday art using cells in a spreadsheet as the pixels. A time delay video was taken and is available over at YouTube and the result is pretty spectacular. More info on how they did this is available behind the scenes. They're inviting people to share their own masterpieces or post a video response over on YouTube."

53 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Excel can do even more! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    3d Graphics engine in Excel previously on slashdot:
    http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/1732220&from=rss

  2. Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents by Kagura · · Score: 3, Funny

    Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents

    Jesus christ, so much for "do no evil"!

    1. Re:Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents by rvw · · Score: 4, Funny

      Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents

      Jesus christ, so much for "do no evil"!

      I believe He was executed as well. I don't know if we can blame Google for it.

    2. Re:Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents by ettlz · · Score: 2

      I believe He was executed as well. I don't know if we can blame Google for it.

      Kinda like this?

    3. Re:Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 3, Funny

      You are thinking of Easter - this is Christmas!

    4. Re:Holiday Art Executed In Google Documents by istartedi · · Score: 1

      No, No. Reindeer and bunnyrabits. No scary birth and resurrection stuff. (Closes eyes, puts hands over ears) "La, la, la". Is the scary religous holiday gone yet? Yes? Yaaay! Let's go shopping.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  3. Re:Did they need to collaborate? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 1

    They each had a different color that they were drawing; seems pretty logical to me. And I certainly can't blame Google for showing off their collaborative features. I've never seen multiple people able to work on the same doc/spreadsheet at once.. the different color cursors is a brilliant idea.

  4. Awesome by metlin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the sort of coolness that I like about technology - the fact that you can use to create something not quite mainstream, yet very interesting and very cool.

    And these are the moments when I really enjoy reading Slashdot. Reminds me of how back in the day, Slashdot used to post something small but interesting done by a geek in a garage...

    1. Re:Awesome by high_rolla · · Score: 1

      I think they may have copied the idea from us. Take a look at this page http://www.engcom.net/component/option,com_grid/Itemid,59/ It never really took off on our site (most likely because we never got a critical mass of visitors, but that's another story). Still if they did, it's gratifying to see the idea taken and implemented successfully. (Also, if they did then some recognition would be nice)

      --
      Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
  5. marketing by mestar · · Score: 1

    Gee, this is just an obvious PR piece.

    1. Re:marketing by A_Lost_Frenchman · · Score: 1

      It all began when Google enabled us to find relevant data in a few seconds.
      They should have known that being confronted to this see of data (especially all those lies) everyday, we would come to see them as what they are : yet another advertising company. __ just passing through

    2. Re:marketing by synthesizerpatel · · Score: 1

      Come on. Granted, Google does many, many, good things. But this piece clearly is just a PR piece, and kind of a hokey one at that.

      Google doesn't need to sell itself to me. I'm already buying it. The bit at the end where the person types in 'Create, Callaborate, blah blah docs.google.com' struck me as in the same vein as the Microsoft "I'm a PC" ads.

    3. Re:marketing by CyberKnet · · Score: 1

      That's funny... I submitted it, and I thought it was an interesting thing to read/see, even if it was a bit PR-ish.

      That's the way these things work. What you see as just a press release could be what I see as an interesting art show.

      All generalizations are a bad thing.

      --
      Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
  6. Poor Art by FreshKarma · · Score: 1

    He so loved the Holidays. Now, his eternal soul is property of Google. He really should have read the Terms and Conditions.

    --
    The future ain't what it used to be.
  7. Nice, however... by g253 · · Score: 1

    what would be really nice is doing this sort of "drawing in a spreadsheet" thing with a bunch of formulas. Fractals or something.

    1. Re:Nice, however... by ettlz · · Score: 4, Funny

      Huh, yeah. Let's have some boobs instead. Oh, God, I foresee a wave of Spread-em-sheet porn...

    2. Re:Nice, however... by RJFerret · · Score: 5, Funny

      Huh, yeah. Let's have some boobs instead. Oh, God, I foresee a wave of Spread-em-sheet porn...

      Okay, not exactly porn, but you inspired me to produce a nude...

    3. Re:Nice, however... by junq316 · · Score: 1

      Mona Lisa as XLS? Why not..

      http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pHu2yWi0V5a9QoOOPOoQwSA

      done with a small perl script, easy ;)

  8. Re:Ackbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The article is about google docs not youtube and what's so wrong with the youtube license anyway?

    You keep your copyrights however you need to grant them rights to distribute your videos, otherwise you can sue them for copyright infringement.

    Some people are just complete morons and should stick to programming.

  9. Except... this is clearly a PR piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your comment about "small but interesting done by a geek in a garage" is clearly not true. This was posted by Google PR, an $83bn outfit. That's one heck of a garage.

    1. Re:Except... this is clearly a PR piece by Almahtar · · Score: 1

      Well, he didn't say it was a small garage.

    2. Re:Except... this is clearly a PR piece by metlin · · Score: 1

      For one, I said it reminded me of those days, not that it was the same as those days.. For another, this was done by a few people at Google, which doesn't necessarily mean that the entire muscle of Google was behind them.

      Well, he didn't say it was a small garage.

      Amen.

  10. Re:music? by negRo_slim · · Score: 1

    the music in that youtube video has been very definitely ripped off of some other song I've heard, but I can't seem to put my finger on it. anyone else have an idea?

    I'm not quite sure what you mean by ripped off but the comments section of the video in question mentioned that Google Programmer had created the song.

    --
    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  11. Re:Did they need to collaborate? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

    Maybe this is just some early viral marketing, taking advantage of the birth of the Savior

    Huh? Barack Obama was born August 4th. Anyhow, this isn't novel. GIMP could save images as html tables last century. It shouldn't be too much work to convert an image to an OO spreadsheet (or OOXML) with color formatted cells.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  12. Anime in Excel by zalas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Speaking of Excel, I came across a bunch of clips the other day on NicoNico Douga where they used Excel to draw video. Here are some YouTube mirrors of those videos, since the original site is Japanese and registration-only:
    ToraDora! OP in Excel
    Higurashi Kai OP in Excel

  13. Re:Ackbar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sure, but why don't they give you the ability to revoke their rights if and when you decide to remove the video from their service?

  14. Idle? by pjt33 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wow. A grid-based system capable of colouring grids can be used to do pixel art? Clearly the term "enterprising" has changed in meaning, but leaving that aside I have to ask why this is in tech? It quite clearly belongs in idle.

    1. Re:Idle? by Daengbo · · Score: 2, Informative

      The point was to show real-time collaboration as a promo for their service. I would hope that Slashdotters would talk about the collaboration angle in Goole Docs and how it stacks up to other services.

      p.s. I'm using only Google Apps this month as an experiment.

      --
      Put identity in the browser.
  15. How fitting ... by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Using a spreadsheet as a graphics program is about as efficient as using a browser to run office applications ...

    --
    "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
    1. Re:How fitting ... by empaler · · Score: 1

      Not only true, but apt, precise and funny. n1 :)

    2. Re:How fitting ... by LoudMusic · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, because it's so much more efficient for everyone to be using different versions of the software AND the document, unless you want to also deal with setting up a collaborative document system.

      But opening a browser window and clicking a link - that's just too much effort.

      --
      No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
    3. Re:How fitting ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Efficient in terms of cpu cycles, not mouse-miles

    4. Re:How fitting ... by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 2, Insightful
      That - and it adds a whole layer of instability on top of your OS (browsers/JS need to be stable too).

      All those lemmings who advocate running applications inside a browser (completely ignoring the fact that networking is available outside browsers too and you don't even need to hand over all your data to a 3rd party for groupware applications) should go apologize to Microsoft, who took a lot of flak for considering the browser part of the OS ...

      --
      "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
    5. Re:How fitting ... by crf00 · · Score: 1

      The point is not of using Google Spreadsheet as a graphics program, rather as an ajax collaborative game to have some fun with your friends in this holiday. I'd expect a better Ajax apps come out just for this.

    6. Re:How fitting ... by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 1

      graphic guestbooks for the web are about 13 years old ... they actually work better for this type of "fun".

      --
      "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
  16. [Offtopic] Why is this in tech? by empaler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not that I dislike the story - I just think it should be in Idle, not in Tech.

    1. Re:[Offtopic] Why is this in tech? by Daengbo · · Score: 1

      Based on how much you work in your tech job, I agree completely. ;)

      --
      Put identity in the browser.
  17. New Possibilities by Virtually+Sane · · Score: 1

    OK - from what I saw (watched the video - easier than reading how to do it ;) ), its using the google spreadsheet like a basic version of MS paint.

    On the other hand, what about getting formula derived holiday art - a random snowflake generator? (I'll leave that to the math geeks)

    Or for something OTT, use this to generate cels for animation, probably itchy and scratchy level of animation, but its their server time, not yours :)

  18. *yawn* by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    ASCII porn is *so* 1970's.

    1. Re:*yawn* by Pushpabon · · Score: 1

      But ansi is very 90s! http://www.acid.org/100/lorez.html

  19. Wow. by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

    wonder what a flashmob could do...

    --
    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  20. Pixelated art by nozzo · · Score: 1

    yawn... I was doing this on my ZX Spectrum over 20 years ago.

    1. Re:Pixelated art by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but this was 5 people collaborating over the internet. I don't think you were doing that on your speccy 20 years ago. They were good, but not that good!

  21. Heard round the net: by atraintocry · · Score: 1

    Spreadsheets or GTFO!

    1. Re:Heard round the net: by nog_lorp · · Score: 1

      *Ahem*

      Spreadsheets or it didn't happen.

  22. This is NOT Christmas. by Rhodri+Mawr · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is NOT Christmas. It's not even Advent yet. Admit it, you're in Marketing aren't you.

    1. Re:This is NOT Christmas. by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

      No, I'm not in marketing. I was referring to Christmas 2008, not 2009.

  23. CAD by Excel by FRiC · · Score: 2, Funny

    A few years ago, a newly hired engineer at work complained that he couldn't find any drawings done by the previous engineer that had just quit. I looked and the guy that quit had several thousand Excel files and his drawings were all done using tiny cells and cell borders. They were complex drawings of mechanical parts and some were even done in 3D perspective.

    The new engineer ended up spending the next few months recreating all the drawings from A3-sized printouts using a real CAD program.

    1. Re:CAD by Excel by Televiper2000 · · Score: 1

      I've done some fairly complex embedded system block diagrams in Excel. I would use the cell frame feature for the boxes, arrows for the bus lines, and then snap everything to a square grid. The beautiful thing about Excel is that everything expands naturally with the 'add entire row' and 'add entire column' features. Labelling is a simply matter of filling in a spreadsheet cell and justifying the text. Some would force me to make drawings in Visio because they were too weak willed to edit my excel drawings (stuff that would take me 10 seconds) and it felt like a real setback.

      Saying that, how anyone could do a 3D drawing in Excel is beyond me. The embedded drawing program is nice if you want to do a quick mechanical mock-up with accurately sized blocks.

      --
      New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
  24. Not Really New..... by IHC+Navistar · · Score: 1

    Back in high school, some of us had some pretty 'adult' pics that had been translated into ASCII characters. What was even cooler was that you couldn't see what they really displayed. If you didn't know the correct font, type size, and justification, the file just displayed a bunch of number/letters/symbols.

    Heh heh heh.....worked pretty well.

    --
    Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
  25. Re:Ackbar by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

    don't knock artists. Da Vinci was a fucking genius. He invented the helicopter. He also painted the mona lisa. The safest form of air transport in the world and the most expensive (read: priceless) portrait in existence.

    I'm a fucking genius as well. 98th centile* (or as smart as Descartes, Einstein, Shakespeare, Goethe, Newton or Spinoza) - assessed nine weeks ago using the WAIS-III test, as it happens. I'm also very creative. I haven't invented any sci-fi-type transportation system or painted any portraits lately, tho... actually, I'm between cold-fusion-in-your-pocket and warp drive for your car. ;)

    *and no, I am NOT nor do ever intend to be a Promethian. Or a member of MENSA. I just... don't do labels. K?

    --
    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  26. Retarded Slashvertisement by Coward+Anonymous · · Score: 1

    It appears that anything a Google employee does these days is considered revolutionary even if it's lame, unoriginal and uninspired.
    That being said, here is some real 3D spreadsheet graphics: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3563/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php

  27. Where's the script? by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1

    I'm just surprised that no one has written a script to convert an image into one of these documents yet, even if it was considered cheating.