hExcel -- A Hexagonal Spreadsheet

Here's a wacky idea, I've got no use for.

'Hexcel' is a spreadsheet with hexagonal cells.

How does it work? What is the advantage? I have no idea. But there could conceivably be some advantage to it.

Bees for example, planning their hive. Settlers of Catan fans, developing game optimization macros. Or experimental musicians, planning new forms of musical notation to accompany their Jankó keyboards.

'Think before coding' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:30:06 GMT, sez:

You now have 3 axes to make sums (vertical and two diagonals)! Great !

'Bring Back A1' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:42:52 GMT, sez:

What happened to A1?
And B2?

All the odd rows in the even columns are missing. So are the even rows in the odd columns!

I hope this thing costs half as much as excel.

Other than that it is hexcellent :-)

'Jenga' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:55:01 GMT, sez:

I'm instantly reminded of...

Let's play Blockbusters!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7bOVvaCJeQ

doo doo doo doo doo doo doo dooooo....

'Metro Sauper' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:19:07 GMT, sez:

The coordinate system for hexagonal grids is not the same as for rectangular grids. I think you would need to adjust that also.

'Metro Sauper' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:25:45 GMT, sez:

This is interesting on the subject: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/grids/#coordinates

'Metro Sauper' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:29:37 GMT, sez:

Also interesting: http://playtechs.blogspot.com/2007/04/hex-grids.html

'Michael L Perry' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:39:29 GMT, sez:

Neural nets. One of the built-in functions will be energy transfer from the six neighboring cells according to weights entered into a parallel worksheet. Add a button to back-propagate the energy to the weights.

'Rice Crispie' on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:28:03 GMT, sez:

Absolutely love this to pieces.

'Glen G' on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:22:10 GMT, sez:

One has to ponder the mind that thought of this... and what "substances" were present... and how the thought process evolved.
Do tell.

'NB' on Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:24:32 GMT, sez:

2D FEA! Finite Element Analysis.

'Reba' on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:52:32 GMT, sez:

Oh, here's another one: why not make a chessboard-type spreadsheet? It will feature the elegant black and white and allow cell-to-cell moves strictly according to the chess laws... Hmm. Might want to think about that. Maybe I'd better not, but I will.

'mike' on Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:37:10 GMT, sez:

As an aside, I don't think bees set out to create hexagons. Cells start circularly but are shaped into hexagons by surrounding cells.

Moreover, I'm not sure that bees can type, hence I'm not so sure that they could fill in the cells on the spreadsheet.

'lb' on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:34:34 GMT, sez:

@Mike

>I'm not sure that bees can type, hence I'm
>not so sure that they could fill in the
>cells on the spreadsheet.

"Bees don't care what humans think."
see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bee_Movie

(a movie i have watched 8 million times, thanks to my toddler ;-) )

lb

'mike' on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:35:35 GMT, sez:

Aha! Bees can suspend OUR disbelief! Remarkable!

:-)

'twoz' on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:01:58 GMT, sez:

I'm thinking this haxagonal grid could be applied to a new version of Minesweeper. Now that would rock! :)

'chaochou2' on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:25:30 GMT, sez:

One vertical/2 diagonals: instead of vertical/horizontal: curved movement thru facets is now possible.

'Jonathan' on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:15:41 GMT, sez:

Hi, does a program of this nature actually exist? I've run into a math problem with my students where this would be very useful. If so, email me at staff.bfs@gmail.com.

Thanks.

'gene' on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:58:54 GMT, sez:

I too have found an application where this would be useful. By the way, I think you'd want three column headings, not two. So, you would have cell 1,1,1, cell 1,1,2, etc. Too bad A1, B2, wouldn't work, but you'd need another set of symbols.

'Grant' on Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:37:33 GMT, sez:

This is a good idea with applications.

One of the possibilities for this type of spreadsheet is a translucent overlay of maps. You could then manipulate data in the cells relative to the map area beneath each cell. Data could be of any type (text, numeric, audio, image, video).

'Anon' on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:16:05 GMT, sez:

it could be useful for triangular math

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