Using Microsoft Excel to Produce HDR images

[Tronhard]

There are some incredibly smart people out there, and this presenter is not only one of them, but he makes the explanation - which is good for numbers people but normally likely to blank out many others - entertaining and engaging for ALL!
That said, while I am a numbers person, I probably won't use his method!

It's worth watching, even to appreciate his entertaining style...
https://www.dpreview.com/videos/5432...xcel-seriously

[Manfred M]

As an academic exercise, definitely interesting. As a practical solution for general use. perhaps not so much.

Given the amount of data in play, I'm a bit surprised that he went with Excel rather than with database software like MS Access.

[Tronhard]

Excel excells at mathematical modelling, not so much as a database, while Access is an excellent relational database that is not a mathematical modelling program. While you have to load the whole worksheet into RAM, given enough it's definitely the best application for the job.

The magic moment was when he was able to assign shades to a range of numerical values and suddenly the matrix of numbers became a pixelated image. That was cool... and again this young man has a future as a presenter, he made what could be a killer dry subject actually very digestible!

[Manfred M]

I understand that as I have used both pieces of software for modeling.

Excel is slow but easy to use. Link Access with with VBA and it can be lighting fast.

[davidedric]

Perhaps, at bottom, he's an accountant

FWIW, my experience of both relational data bases and spreadsheets, in a science research environment, goes back to, I think, 1983.

Hey ho, Dave

[Tronhard]

I understand that as I have used both pieces of software for modeling.

Excel is slow but easy to use. Link Access with with VBA and it can be lighting fast.

It's horses for courses Manfred. I worked on the development teams for Windows and Office 95 and then spent almost 20 years teaching them. It's not just about speed. Access is designed to handle large amounts of data right enough, and from 3D relational tables, but it's strength is not this kind of data manipulation - it's designed to related units of data for association, filtering, presentation and reporting, but not perform what if calculations or use it's grids to generate matrices of data variants.

Access works through units of data in series, not loading the whole thing into RAM at the same time - which is why (you are correct) that it is faster with large amounts of data. Excel loads the whole thing into RAM, so it's not good for huge data, but in this case where we want to see the whole table as a pixelated image, it's amazing!

[xpatUSA]

Perhaps, at bottom, he's an accountant

FWIW, my experience of both relational data bases and spreadsheets, in a science research environment, goes back to, I think, 1983.

Hey ho, Dave

I recall creating a relational database (i.e. instrument list), for Nova Corporation of Canada, using the principles expounded by E. F. Codd.

Nova was not amused ...

[Tronhard]

I recall creating a relational database (i.e. instrument list), for Nova Corporation of Canada, using the principles expounded by E. F. Codd.

Nova was not amused ...

A lot of corporates I worked with outlawed the installation of MS Access on their systems because customers would get frustrated waiting for the IT dept to come up with a database solution based on Oracle or some such, and would go ahead and make their own. They had special presentations to outline the evils of developing one's own databases.

I think there were Access User Anonymous meetings...
"Good day everyone, my name is Bill and I'm an Access user!"
"Hello Bill..."

[Manfred M]

A lot of corporates I worked with outlawed the installation of MS Access on their systems because customers would get frustrated waiting for the IT dept to come up with a database solution based on Oracle or some such, and would go ahead and make their own. They had special presentations to outline the evils of developing one's own databases.

I had a very similar experience with Excel. The accountants who got tired of waiting for the IT department would set up parallel "black book" systems outside of the corporate databases and run their own systems that way.

I remember developing the specs for a new corporate receivables system. I met with the accountants to get their requirements and they gave me these huge and complex spreadsheets. They had some problems understanding that we could not deliver something that looked like a spreadsheet when we were building a relational database that linked into other corporate systems. I understand that Excel is viewed as evil by IT departments too.

On the flip side, I wrote a prototype inventory management system with a Visual Basic (and a bit of C code) front end that used a dBase backend that was ported to Oracle as the final product. Access and dBase were excellent rapid development / prototyping tools.

[Tronhard]

I understand that Excel is viewed as evil by IT departments too.

I must admit I never had a bad experience with Excel. It is such a great modelling program for all sorts of users that there would have been a revolt from the senior management (for a start) if we had even suggested withdrawing it. We simply made it clear through education what the difference was between a flat file dB and a relational dB. We told them that they could not create relational dB and if they wanted them we would do it. By letting them get on with the flat file stuff it kept them busy and we had more time to work on the meaty stuff.

All hell broke lose when MS introduced Office 2007 with the adaptive ribbon. Once execs' PAs (and other expert users) found it on their machines the change in interface threw them and we had reverse engineer it off their systems. Bad MS - they should have given users the choice of interface, as we did with Win95. They did the same thing again with Win8 and partially corrected it with Win10...

[george013]

What is the essential difference between a 3-dimensional RGB raster image in memory and a 3-dimensional spreadsheet?
I don't see that much difference.

George

[Tronhard]

Off hand neither can I actually...