
Lights and Shadows - robert-boehnke
https://ciechanow.ski/lights-and-shadows/
======
playpause
I love the format of interactive educational documents, especially when you
can tell that the 'teacher' is also the UI designer and developer in one _and_
there's a very high level of quality and polish. There's nothing quite like it
for learning a complex subject.

Check out the archives [1] for more amazing interactive documents by this
author.

Can anyone share any more examples of this kind of thing? The OP's archives
[1] are amazing.

[1] [https://ciechanow.ski/archives/](https://ciechanow.ski/archives/)

~~~
GuiA
[https://distill.pub](https://distill.pub) is such a platform for articles
about machine learning

[https://explorabl.es](https://explorabl.es) is a more general hub.

 _> especially when you can tell that the 'teacher' is also the UI designer
and developer in one and there's a very high level of quality and polish.
There's nothing quite like it for learning a complex subject._

Agreed. Unfortunately I think this is the inherent limitation to the explosion
of such material (Bret's seminal essay [0] was almost a decade ago) - it takes
an insane amount of skill, in mostly orthogonal disciplines, as well as a lot
of time and effort to make it. Some tools attempt to make them a little
straightforward to program, but due to the nature of it you can't really have
a one size fits all solution that isn't just a general programming language +
rendering engine.

And there is no "explorables industry" to fund the production of those (unlike
say, textbooks), so it ends up being mostly side projects for otherwise
gainfully employed developers.

It would be amazing to have eg. attempts at building an entire K-12 curriculum
around explorable explanations. It's also the kind of work that probably loses
in clarity and value when done by a team/committee rather than a single person
dedicated to their vision.

[0]
[http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/](http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/)

~~~
thomasikzelf
> Agreed. Unfortunately I think this is the inherent limitation to the
> explosion of such material (Bret's seminal essay [0] was almost a decade
> ago) - it takes an insane amount of skill, in mostly orthogonal disciplines,
> as well as a lot of time and effort to make it.

This is what I figured out as well. Often the people that have the knowledge
are not the ones who know how to put this on to a webpage in a another form
then text and images. Like mygo comments below most explanations are done in
interactive news articles but this has to be done with a team of programmers
and designers who are working together. I am currently building a tool trying
to narrow this gap. The tool is at a very early stage, but I'm sharing early
previews at [1]. The goal is to create a tool for interactive visualizations
that people without much programming experience can use which outputs
something that is more dynamic then just text. Such a tool could never do what
could be done with a full blown programming language but I'm hoping to start
at an easy to use tool and expand it outwards to more complex visualizations.

[1] [https://dribbble.com/shots/12517016-Essay-with-dynamic-
backg...](https://dribbble.com/shots/12517016-Essay-with-dynamic-background)

~~~
mygo
Did you take any inspiration from this Washington Post article? [1]

1 -
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/coronavirus-
how-epidemics-spread-and-end/?tid=graphics-story)

~~~
thomasikzelf
I did not see that article but that is definitely the kind of thing I want to
make possible. Thank you for the link!

This is one example of showing information in an interactive way but there are
other forms as well. There are currently around 10 other visual
representations in the tool (think maps, presentations etc).

~~~
mygo
It seems as though it’s a developing trend in web design.

[https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-06-17/an-
analys...](https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-06-17/an-analysis-of-
three-covid-19-outbreaks-how-they-happened-and-how-they-can-be-
avoided.html?ssm=FB_CC&fbclid=IwAR1mLZ5IMrTNuasLNUgmDOf3-6FvZ1ApIakF0o3eRyX8x7NT9OHki4dJT4w)

Can you share the other presentation forms? I may have some examples for each
found out in the wild.

~~~
thomasikzelf
I sent you an email!

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alhirzel
The amount of care put into preparing this is amazing. The back-up lights even
illuminate on the car when moving the slider backwards.

~~~
koffiezet
Yeah that also caught my eye, it was a very nice touch :)

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dag11
I love the touch of the car's reverse lights coming on when you're sliding it
closer to you!

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tbabb
I think this is the most beautiful rendering explanation I've ever seen.

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DavidVoid
Those are some well made demonstrations! Really intuitive and I think this
would be a good theoretical starting point for anyone interested in computer
graphics.

I think it should be clarified that with a real monochromatic cyan light
source the tiles in this example [1] would be different hues of cyan, and not
different hues of green, blue, and cyan (which is due to the cyan light source
being modeled as a combination of green and blue light in the example).

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/9685hzU.png](https://i.imgur.com/9685hzU.png)

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greatwave1
This reminded me of an article about James Turrell and his experimentation
with light as "not a tool to enable vision but something to look at":

[https://www.archdaily.com/380911/light-matters-seeing-the-
li...](https://www.archdaily.com/380911/light-matters-seeing-the-light-with-
james-turrell)

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keane
Great resource! (I love the amount of thought the author put into how learners
might best grasp the concepts via examples that differ from the typical
diagrams.) I only wish it had continued with more complex setups!

As someone interested in how light works for its impact on photography and
cinematography, I’d like to find expanded similar resources.

The main one that comes to my mind is "Light: Science and Magic"
(978-0415719407) which I own. Another possible learning tool (which I have not
yet had a chance to use) is Cine Tracer:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/904960/Cine_Tracer/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/904960/Cine_Tracer/)

Any other books, sites, or software that might help one learn how to better
understand or shape light?

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polymonster
Looks really nice, the widgets are great and run well on my phone. Is it a
real time ray tracer doing the rendering? Still amazes me these days what’s
possible in browsers or on a phone.

~~~
pixelhorse
> Is it a real time ray tracer doing the rendering?

With these shapes, this can be solved analytically with the equations shown.
If this was raytracing, you'd need a lot of rays for such a clean image.

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masona
I sent this to several of my friends who are professional photographers and
all they could say was ‘shhhh don’t give away our secrets.’

It’s all about the light. Really beautiful demonstrations.

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chrisweekly
Wow, yes, this, thank you, kudos, "please sir may I have another".... 10/10,
A+, bookmarked, sharing, inspired...

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alanbernstein
My only complaint is that I hoped for a second half of the article with
equally detailed visualizations, explaining the physically-based rendering
algorithms used to create the visualizations in the first half. The last
diagram showing multiple matte reflections is just a teaser.

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zeveb
_Excellent_ example of where JavaScript really is useful!

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streulpita
Very cool. Was there a specific framework or library you used to make these
demos besides just Three JS?

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mirimir
It's cool, but I see that it requires WebGL.

I wonder if it could be done without it.

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pixelhorse
Delightful!

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brandly
So good!

