Using Excel As a 3D Graphics Engine 292
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."
Re:One can only ask... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One can only ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hope he had fun at least (Score:2, Insightful)
A cool trick, straight from the textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:One can only ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
The source of progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WAY TOO MUCH FREE TIME (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you are not serious (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:A cool trick, straight from the textbook (Score:0, Insightful)
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
That would be because it's the computer science department, not the computer programming department.
Besides, the point isn't to teach you to write a graphics program -- you should be capable of learning that on your own. The point is to teach how to think about the problems, and especially to teach the background. If you're practiced in thinking about the problems in the right way, you'll be able to learn the implementation details on your own. If all you know is the implementation, you'll never produce anything except the cookbook recipes.
Of course, there are those who will figure out the theory on their own anyway, but they're likely to produce spectacular results regardless of the details of the course content.
Re:Quick Summary of Article - Breathless Hype (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:I hope you are not serious (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as "useless" goes, the best times I've ever had in my life have been essentially "useless" under your definition - sex, travel, rockclimbing, programming for fun, and so forth - though never all of these at once, it must be said.
Work less, enjoy more.
Re:I hope you are not serious (Score:5, Insightful)
A "sad waste" would be if you lived your life without ever doing anything just because you liked doing it.
And dedication or intelligence is not some limited resource that gets less each time you use it on something you enjoy, quite the opposite.
Same for time, unless you somehow manage to live your live without any free time (which brings us back to the "sad waste")
Re:One can only ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
you can't have extra spaces in a CSV, unless you drive a " Porsche".
Re:I hope you are not serious (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm in my 40s now, and time is so precious and I just see something like this as a sad waste. Here's a guy who is obviously intelligent but he devoted an amount of his finite time on planet earth doing something basically useless to himself and others. Were his energies properly "self-directed" think what he could have done for himself!! Think about the lost potential in the form of dedication, intelligence, and time!!!
Why Did You Ask? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hope you are not serious (Score:2, Insightful)
I suppose I could have said a whole bunch more, but that sums it up nicely.
Laziness is the basis of most revolutionary ideas! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I hope you are not serious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One can only ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
Old != Smart
Eastern European? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"?
Re:One can only ask... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One can only ask... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.