3D Models

Learn Excel From MrExcel, Podcast Episode 2109: 3D Models In Excel.

This is something really different here on a Friday. Brand-new feature that just came out, the week of July 10th 2017. Now, this is the Office 365 only, Insiders Fast, right? So, if you're on Insider Slow, you have about four week, if you're on the [deferred chain – 00:20] about 13 weeks, but they've introduced the new ability to insert a 3D model in Excel, 3D model from a file, and, right now, they're accepting six different file types.

I've never heard of any of these before and so I wanted to try it out, and here's the great, great bit of news. There are a whole bunch of 3D models available for free on the internet, and one great place to get these is from NASA. If you search for NASA 3D models, there is a page here of 100s of different models.

Now, hey, here's some hassles, right? So, here's TDRS. This is great. This is a satellite that is going up August 3rd of 2017, a communication satellite, and they have three different versions of TDRS, and even the TDRS Antenna there, but it's hit or miss. Sometimes, they have a version that'll work, like the STL file. STL, that's accepted, awesome, but there are other times where the file types that they offer for a specific thing are not yet accepted.

Here's a cool one, the new rocket that will take [Ryan – 01:28] to Mars in a few years. A MAX file. Shoot. That's not going to work because that's not one of the file types that it's reading yet. Maybe they'll add it, but here's another version of the same rocket with an STL file. It's big. 40.69 megabyte. Might as well pause the video [while – 01:52] that downloads. So, you get a zip file. Extract that. Then come back to Excel. We'll give it a try. INSERT, ILLUSTRATIONS, 3D MODELS, FROM A FILE. There's our STL file.

Hm. Not that impressive, is it? Looks like we're looking at the bottom of a rocket, 4 rocket boosters there, 2 side boosters, but check this out. We can increase the size and then we have all of these different views of that rocket, and not just those views. Let's go back to this one right here and we will use this doohickey -- I don't know what the real name for it is -- and we can spin this thing and look at it from any side. We can rotate it and so on. This is really cool. I don't know how it's going to help you with your budget for next year but it's certainly a good way to kill some time.

Alright. Here's a few other examples. The Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA here on Merritt Island, this can be seen from just about everywhere, 50 stories tall. This is a picture of the VAB but that picture is very static. You're only seeing this angle. Here's the 3D model of the VAB. I kind of arranged it to look about the same. Looks pretty good. A little building out there in front, but check this out. I can use the 3D grabber there and we can look at the building from any side. We can look at the top. Hey, I realize this is free but there's stuff missing up here. I've been up on the roof of the VAB, that's me on the roof of the VAB, and there's a few things missing, but from the ground, it looks good. You can even look at it from  underneath. It looks like a big empty shell, like that. Cool, huh?

Alright. Here’s another one I downloaded. This is the asteroid Bennu. No one's going to be alive in 2136, at least no one watching this video today is going to be alive in 2136, but in 2136, this is going to pass between the Earth and the moon. It's going to be quite an event. Alright, now, here's a picture of Dr. Richey from NASA holding a model of Bennu, but how much cooler is it to actually be able to spin this around and look at Bennu from all of the various sides? So, the first thing I want to know, is VBA supported? And, unfortunately, this little action here of rotating is not supported in VBA, but the one thing you can do is this…it’s just a regular old [shape object – 04:12] here and you can use the VBA to move that shape around.

I went out yesterday to try and shoot a film of the ISS passing in front of the sun. It happens really fast and I learned that my trigger doesn't work for video, so I came home with nothing other than a picture of the sun, no ISS passing in front of it, and, kind of as a joke, I had this great new ISS model. So, I wrote a little VBA here that it would take that 3D model and have it pass in front of the sun, and I actually created a little video of that and sent it to my buddy who actually did capture the whole thing going by. I said, hey, look, mine's better than yours, because his was really small and mine is completely fake, but there you have it. A little bit of fun with VBA.

Let's take a look at this code. ALT+F11, and just ACTIVESHEET.SHAPES, the name of the shape, 3D MODEL 1, INCREMEMENT LEFT, INCREMENT TOP. Every time I press the button, it moves down 2 pixels and 4…or moves across 2 pixels and down 4 pixels. It's cool.

Now, hey, one thing that I've learned here, one hassle with this, is…so I have three different shapes here and I find it nearly impossible to select the 3D shape. They always want to select something else, alright? So, what I found is I have to come out here to HOME, FIND & SELECT, go to the SELECTION PANE, and then using the selection pane, click on 3DMODEL1, and, again, it's really a hassle. You have to be on the border. If I click here, they're going to choose something else, alright? So, I’ve been doing a lot of swearing about this the whole time. Make sure to get on the border and then you can move it out and around, alright?

They’re cool. I don't know, like I said, what it has to do with budgeting or data analysis or anything like that. It came, of course, to Excel and Word and PowerPoint, and maybe this is really a PowerPoint thing, but it's cool it's in Excel, you know. Check it out if you have Office 365.

Well, a lot of features in Excel in my new book Power Excel With MrExcel. Click that i on the top right-hand corner to read more about the book.

New feature in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Office 365 exclusive. 3D models. There's lots of 3D models available for free on the internet. You can resize, change the view, or free rotate. Now, with VBA, as of today, you can't rotate the object. I actually asked the team at Microsoft. I said, hey, any support for VBA? They're like, well, why would you ever need VBA? And I said, well, you know, because it would be fun to create a little animation with the VBA, and no response yet, but I'm sure it'll be on the list for somewhere down the road.

Well, hey. There you have it, a little fun for a Friday video. I want to thank you for stopping by. We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.