Few days ago, I saw a beautiful homemade science experiment on Sand Pendulums on Bruce Yeany’s YouTube channel. Go ahead and check it out. It is a cool project to do with your kids.
I will try this experiment with kids during school term holidays around Easter. But first, I wanted to try the simulation in Excel.
Simulating sand pendulum pattern in Excel
Take a look at the final simulation.
Pendulum pattern – Lissajous curve
The patterns generated by sand pendulum are nothing but Lissajous curves. We can generate these curves in Excel by using below equations.
- X = A * SIN(a*t + d)
- Y = B * SIN(b*t)
where
- A & B refer to amplitude (the length pendulum travels before reversing its direction) along X & Y axes
- a & b refer to height of pendulum along X & Y axes (if these are same you get a simple pendulum and thus a straight line pattern)
- d refers to degrees of shift (its a bit complex to explain here, but read about phase shift on Lissajous curve Wikipedia page)
- t refers to radians (degrees).
But this will generate a smooth line, how to show sand?
Simple, after computing each pair of (X, Y) we add a small random noise to them. This creates an impression of sand falling from pendulum on to a surface and bouncing off. Let’s define our new equations as,
- X = A * SIN(a*t + d) + jx * rand()
- Y = B * SIN(b*t) + jy *rand()
Where jx & jy are jitter fractions (very small numbers, lest the dots will be too away from original points)
What if the pendulum never stops?
Since we are simulating the movement of a pendulum in Excel, we can choose to have a never stopping pendulum (ie a simple gravity pendulum). In this case A & B values never change.
In real life, A&B will reduce with each oscillation until the pendulum comes to a stop (because there is air drag, friction and other forces at play too).
Let’s look at the chart & VBA
Enough physics & maths. Let’s take a look at the chart & VBA behind this simulation.
- Set up 3 columns, one with t values starting from 0 and increasing by 0.05 per cell, next two with X & Y values.
- Leave the X&Y values blank. We will use VBA to fill these.
- Let’s say we use 5000 (x,y) values to plot the chart. This gives enough variation. You can alter the number of rows later.
- Create a scatter plot with smoothed line using these 5000 (x,y) values.
- Using VBA, iterate thru column t and calculate X & Y values for each t value using above equations.
- Update the chart by using doEvents after every n calculations. Try n=25 first and change as you see fit. Updating the chart after every calculation slows down the animation significantly.
- Change A, B, a, b, d, jx, jy and air drag factors to generate different curves.
Here is the VBA code used for the animation.
Sub animate()
Dim xVal As Double, yVal As Double, jx As Single, jy As Single
Dim t As Range
Dim a1 As Single, drag As Single
Dim a2 As Double, b2 As Double, d As Double
Dim updateScreen As Integer
Dim tVals As Range
a1 = 1
drag = Range("air.drag")
a2 = [a.2]
b2 = [b.2]
jx = [j.x]
jy = [j.y]
d = WorksheetFunction.pi() / Range("d")
Set tVals = Range("t.vals")
Range(tVals.Offset(, 1), tVals.Offset(, 2)).ClearContents
Range("done") = "drawing..."
For Each t In tVals
xVal = a1 * Sin(t * a2 + d) + jx * Rnd()
yVal = a1 * Sin(t * b2) + jy * Rnd()
t.Offset(, 1).Value = xVal
t.Offset(, 2).Value = yVal
'update screen after every 25 times this loop has run
updateScreen = IIf(updateScreen = 25, 0, updateScreen + 1)
If updateScreen = 0 Then DoEvents
'Reduce A & B values by using drag
a1 = a1 * (1 - drag)
Next t
Range("done") = "done"
End Sub
Download Pendulum Sand Patterns Workbook
Click here to download the Pendulum Sand patterns workbook. Play with the animate & random pattern buttons to see some cool patterns.
Have you done this experiment?
This is a cool way to teach kids the awesome pattern power of simple things in life. Have you done this experiment? If not, give it a try. If you think playing with sand is too messy, try the Excel workbook.
Also check out: 3D dancing pendulums post to see some cool & clever animations. Huge collection of spreadsheet tools & simulations for teachers.
23 Responses to “Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA”
Its possible to display up to 4 text values.
Have a look at the screen shot of an example that I had posted way back at the EHA and figure out how its done !
http://tinypic.com/r/muzywk/6
With Excel 2010 you can use Conditional Formatting to apply custom number formats which can display text. (In older versions you can only modify text color and cell background color, but not number formats.) Using CF allows for an even larger number of different display values.
[...] Display text values in Pivot Tables without VBA [...]
Hey,
Thanks, this helps. But how do you do it for multiple values where there is a huge amount of non repeating text?
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn't a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
@Soumya
The only way to do more than 4 values is to make the Pivot Table manually with formulas, of course then it isn’t a Pivot table
You can of course do it with VBA
You may want to have a look at this description of how to do it here: http://www.clearlyandsimply.com/clearly_and_simply/2011/06/emulate-excel-pivot-tables-with-texts-in-the-value-area-using-vba.html
[...] Pivot Tables take tables of data and allow the user to summarise and consolidate the data at the same time. This is a great and very fast method of analysis but is restricted to handling mathematical functions on the value field resulting in numerical summaries. – read more [...]
[…] Read more here: Displaying Text Values in Pivot Tables without VBA […]
There is a very good way actually for handling text inside values area.
First you create a special column on the very left side and call it ID, and put unique ID (numbers only), and then create a pivot table with:
Row Labels and Column labels as you like, and in the Values labels use the unique ID number.
Move the unique ID number (copy paste) somewhere to the right and use vlookup to load the data you need using the ID as reference.
It is a bit longer way but for me it works perfectly to combine values as you like in any moment.
hope helps.
Regards,
Jon
Thank you! I finally understand pivot tables thanks to your clear, concise explanations and examples.
Good Day. This is exactly what i have been looking for. However when i try it on my pivot table or even when i try to recreate this exercise using the sample worksheet, i get this error:
"Microsoft Excel cannot use the number format you typed. Try using one of the built-in number formats."
Same thing here, Excel quite did not like the format in my PowerPivot. Any clues as to what may be going on? Thanks.
I have the same thing happening on my end. I'm running a normal pivot table on a .xlsm file.
@Danzi
What format did you use?
can you post the file ?
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C
MR.A CFVDE2458T
MR.Z AAVCR12548C
MR.X AAAAC1254T
MR.Z AADCD245T
pls. help in table there is name, pan. amount. i have to make pivot table for example
NAME PAN AMOUNT
MR.X AAAAC1254T 500.00
MR.Y AAABR1258C 1000
MR.A CFVDE2458T 2000
MR.Z AAVCR12548C 5451
MR.X AAAAC1254T 45564
MR.Z AADCD245T 4500
how to get pivot tabe so i get PAN no. against Name.
I found an easy way to get text values in pivot table.
I create an other worksheet in wich each cell has a formula that copy the pivot table. The trick is that the formula does a lookup for the numbers in the pivot table.
The formula looks like that:
=IF(ISNUMBER(table!A1);VLOOKUP(table!A1;Code!$A$1:$B$65;2);IF(ISBLANK(table!A1);" ";table!A1))
Code is a worksheet where there is a liste of text /numbers correspondance.
As a bonus The new sheet is easier to format
Additional trick:
In my case, i encoded differents codeid with a power(2, codeId-1) so that summing then is equivalent to concatenate them.
1-A
2-B
4-C
8-D
yields :
5 - AC
14 - BCD
Hi
I want to ask if pivot can display dates in pivot field. As in a column i have customers and in row different items i want to know there last purchase date. anyone help in this??
Hello Guys, Need your help
I am doing some analysis of the cycle time of the product i.e how much time a product takes from manufacturing to the central warehouse.
I have batch numbers for the product and against them i have to pull out the diff. dates
Like the base date is from where the manufacturing start. So i have the batch number,against it's manuf. date. Now i have to pull out the date when it was quality released.
I have the quality released data but the data have duplicates, like i will have two dates or may be three for the same batch. So my main objective is to pull out the date which is latest among them.
BATCH NO. DATE of Mfg. DATE of Quality release
A1 12/4/2014 (HERE I HAVE TO PULL value)
Next Sheet
BATCH NO. DATE of Quality Release
A1 14/5/2014
a2 23/5/2016
A1 12/5/2014
A1 13/6/2014
From this sheet i have to pull up the latest date format of date here is dd/mm/yyy
TIA
[…] needed to present text instead of counts in a pivot table value column. Here is an excellent resource for Excel manipulation, in addition to an overview of pivot […]
This is great thank you.
Wow!!! Excellent!! It helped me a lot.
I am developing training tracking sheet for 200 employees with training completed date. Each employee will be attending 25 courses. How to indicate actual dates in pivot table value field.