Yesterday I saw a tweet from @JanWillemTulp,
Happy Holidays! https://t.co/iAnKXJq20a Generate your own data snowflake based on your seasonal greeting! pic.twitter.com/RHi5bLBqSF
— @JanWillemTulp@vis.social /@jwtulp.bsky.social (@JanWillemTulp) December 21, 2015
That got me thinking…? Why can’t we make a snow flake pattern in Excel?
This is what I came up with.
Download Excel Snow Flake Maker
Click here to download the Excel workbook. Press F9 to make another pattern. You can also make pentagonal snow flakes. They are very rare, so go easy on them 🙂
Snow flakes in Excel? How…
I am a little too lazy to explain the calculations behind this. But here is the gist. Examine the calc tab in download workbook for more.
- Let’s assume we have regular hexagon with unit radius (r = 1)
- We calculate the vertices of a regular hexagon (x=sin θ & y = cos θ, where θ = {60,120,180…360})
- Then we rotate the hexagon by random degrees (between 3 to 21) on both sides, shrink r by an arbitrary fraction (20% to 80%) and calculate new vertices. Say these are (x1,y1), (x3,y3)
- We also calculate the vertices of original hexagon when r is multiplied by a random number (between 1 and 3). Say this is (x2,y2)
- Now we have 3 points for each vertex of the hexagon
- (x1,y1) – original hexagon rotated by random degrees to right and shrunk
- (x3,y3) – original hexagon rotated by same random degrees to left and shrunk
- (x2,y2) – original hexagon expanded by a random factor
- We then draw a line connecting the origin (0,0) to (x1,y1) to (x2,y2) to (x3,y3) and back to origin – (0,0)
- We repeat this process for all vertices
- We now have a teeny tiny snow flake.
- When you repeat steps 3 to 7 few more times and overlay all these shapes one on top, we get a nice looking snow flake.
The logic is similar for pentagonal snow flakes. We just use different θs in step 2
Enjoy your snow flake, or the real snow if you live in a colder country. Alas, in Vizag, this winter has been a mild summer. So I am going to imagine snow while lounging under fan with a book in my hands.
Happy holidays.
PS: For more visualization fun this holidays, check out Madelbrot fractals in Excel, 3D Dancing pendulums and Excel fire works.
6 Responses to “Make VBA String Comparisons Case In-sensitive [Quick Tip]”
Another way to test if Target.Value equal a string constant without regard to letter casing is to use the StrCmp function...
If StrComp("yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
' Do something
End If
That's a cool way to compare. i just converted my values to strings and used the above code to compare. worked nicely
Thanks!
In case that option just needs to be used for a single comparison, you could use
If InStr(1, "yes", Target.Value, vbTextCompare) Then
'do something
End If
as well.
Nice tip, thanks! I never even thought to think there might be an easier way.
Regarding Chronology of VB in general, the Option Compare pragma appears at the very beginning of VB, way before classes and objects arrive (with VB6 - around 2000).
Today StrComp() and InStr() function offers a more local way to compare, fully object, thus more consistent with object programming (even if VB is still interpreted).
My only question here is : "what if you want to binary compare locally with re-entering functions or concurrency (with events) ?". This will lead to a real nightmare and probably a big nasty mess to debug.
By the way, congrats for you Millions/month visits 🙂
This is nice article.
I used these examples to help my understanding. Even Instr is similar to Find but it can be case sensitive and also case insensitive.
Hope the examples below help.
Public Sub CaseSensitive2()
If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbBinaryCompare) = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub
Public Sub CaseSensitive()
If InStr("Look in this string", "look") = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub
Public Sub NotCaseSensitive()
'doing alot of case insensitive searching and whatnot, you can put Option Compare Text
If InStr(1, "Look in this string", "look", vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
MsgBox "woops, no match"
Else
MsgBox "at least one match"
End If
End Sub