visualrambling.space

Learning and science

math visualization

SHOW HN2025

865points
132comments
#21of 3,837 in 2025
Top 1%of 2025 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

36 positive, 27 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 14 critical, out of 78 comments about the project. Thread score +0.28.

Idea: 15 for, 1 againstDesign: 9 for, 5 againstExecution: 8 for, 3 againstDocs: 2 for, 2 againstPerformance: 0 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clear, beautiful teaching of parametric math through animation

    From 5 comments
    • This is excellent. I'm always looking for good things to show my students on coordinate systems and geometry, and this joins the list. Thank you for diving down the rabbit hole…
      Duanemclemore on HN
    • This is fantastic. What a terrific combination of the creative presentation and the clear exposition of information. You've hit on a very nice aesthetic and a stunningly clear…
      thopkinson on HN
    • That's an excellent job of teaching - thank you!
      SKILNER on HN
    • This is awesome, it was easier to understand that what my uny theacher tried to explain.
      BlitzCloud on HN
    • I love this. It's pretty and really easy to digest.
      fleebee on HN
  • Helpful for students and learners of trigonometry and geometry

    From 3 comments
    • This is excellent. I'm always looking for good things to show my students on coordinate systems and geometry, and this joins the list. Thank you for diving down the rabbit hole…
      Duanemclemore on HN
    • I am about to start my computer science degree, so this visualization got me really excited to dive into the mathematics of it all. I love to see these kind of animations, but…
      willdelorm on HN
    • I applaud anybody who makes visualizations of difficult to grasp concepts - so, thank you very much. As a visual (spatial) learner, I often wonder how my math/science education…
      p00dles on HN

Objections

  • Does not work well in some browsers; Firefox and Librewolf issues reported

    From 3 comments
    • When I first opened it, its basically a bunch of static pages that made absolutely no sense. My first question was 'why is this garbage being #1 on HN?' Then I realized that,…
      mystraline on HN
    • I'm using dev edition v143.0b2 and I'm apparently not seeing what everyone else is seeing, because I'm just seeing the axis tags moving around using some pretty simple math.…
      sli on HN
    • For me, it doesn't work entirely in Librewolf 142 (shows the text, and some tags moving around an otherwise black screen), but does work in Firefox Nightly.
      hotsalad on HN
  • Heavy CPU use and performance problems

    From 3 comments
    • I can't tell why, but I'm getting terrible performance on Linux/Brave. The CPU spikes immediately on visit. I'm on a powerful machine (32 GiB RAM, Intel i9 w/ 24 cores).
      mustaphah on HN
    • It seems like it might be cool but between the background animation and the resource intensiveness I'm having trouble actually reading it. Is there a mostly-text version somewhere?
      phyzome on HN
    • it's impressive enough to crash my browser (twise) before I got to see it the full digital resource conflict jam and judder!
      metalman on HN
  • Dither effect and constant spinning background are distracting or cause headaches

    From 2 comments
    • The content is good, but the weird dither effect is giving me a horrible headache! I'm glad you created it (it's always good to see someone bring an idea to fruition!), and I…
      coreyp_1 on HN
    • Very distracting to try and read text in the middle of a constantly spinning visualisation
      adammarples on HN
  • Too big a leap in difficulty; not enough explanation of the spherical helix itself

    From 3 comments
    • Very cool & pretty, but I feel a little let down. There is a huge leap from the basics of 3d plotting & spheres to the crazy pattern you tease and then show at the end. I…
      dgrin91 on HN
    • > Together, these functions create a spherical helix... That's all! This strikes me as backwards reasoning. You are showing "these functions" -> spherical helix But I actually…
      tantalor on HN
    • when it gets past the "intro" slides and into the A-B-C explanation, slide 11 says "A helix is a shape that loops around and around, like a spring." Unfortunately, what is shown…
      fsckboy on HN

Requests

  • Explain how to make constant-speed motion along the path

    From 2 comments
    • Awesome visualizations. The part that I was expecting to see but didn't: how can you move at a constant speed? For the original purpose of positioning objects along a path, it…
      sfink on HN
    • thanks! currently the path is expressed as function of (t), and it's the t that progressed at the constant speed. so the cube will finished one loop at the same duration, and…
      damarberlari on HN
  • Better navigation, such as scroll or swipe to advance slides

    From 3 comments
    • Thanks. My useful feedback is that navigation violated my expectations. I was in mobile FWIW. I didn't know what to do so I started to scroll. My touch to the screen kicked into…
      erikerikson on HN
    • Cool! My first instinct was to scroll. I suggest you treat the scroll down as a signal to move 1 slide further
      lucho_mzmz on HN
    • Really love this project, I only have small little UX nitpick: as lefthanded person it is quite cumbersome to tap right side of screen. Go to solution is to navigate using…
      aacid on HN
  • Provide source code or write-up on how it was made

    From 3 comments
    • This is super nice to view, could you share how you made it? I want to make something similar for Rotation Matrices
      mostlyk on HN
    • this is so pretty. Have you done any write-ups on how to create this (or any of the other visualisations on your page). I would love to learn more.
      haritha-j on HN
    • Wish the bundle.js wasn't minified so I can look at the code and see what's going on!
      MarcelOlsz on HN
  • Provide a text-only version

    From 1 comment
    • It seems like it might be cool but between the background animation and the resource intensiveness I'm having trouble actually reading it. Is there a mostly-text version somewhere?
      phyzome on HN

Questions

  • How is constant speed along the path achieved?

    From 2 comments
    • Awesome visualizations. The part that I was expecting to see but didn't: how can you move at a constant speed? For the original purpose of positioning objects along a path, it…
      sfink on HN
    • Okay, I have some followup questions. Are the points equally spaced? I.e. the cube's |∆p| is constant? I see you scale z by the sin. What happens of you don't?
      Tyr42 on HN
  • Why was this particular z function chosen?

    From 2 comments
    • I was wondering about the “correctness” of the z-axis movement for the spherical helix. You could pick lots of different functions, including simple linear motion (z = c * t).…
      pimlottc on HN
    • > You could pick lots of different functions, including simple linear motion (z = c * t) that was also my first intuition when making this, but turned out making the z function…
      damarberlari on HN
  • How was the cube's drain/fill effect created?

    From 1 comment
    • Nifty, but what I'm curious about is how you created the drain/fill effect on the cube.
      danans on HN

Alternatives named

  • Desmos 3D graphing

    From 1 comment
    • You can play with the equations on 3D Desmos here: https://www.desmos.com/3d/t66etxi1y8 Interesting to note that the parametric equations of the spiral are linear in spherical…
      mayoff on HN
  • p5.js

    From 1 comment
    • I've recently gotten interested in p5js, which is a fun and easy way to explore this kind of stuff; if anyone here is currently thinking (like I am) that you want to try this out…
      pavel_lishin on HN
  • Shadertoy and The Book of Shaders

    From 1 comment
    • If you like this, you will probably enjoy https://www.shadertoy.com/ and https://thebookofshaders.com/
      ForHackernews on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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