Lucas Vieira
1ucasvb.tumblr.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2013
Lucas Vieira (LucasVB) makes animated visualizations of mathematics and physics, many of them used on Wikipedia.
What HN saysHN commenters call him a master of math visualization, praise his clear animations such as line integrals and Fourier series, and note his POV-Ray and PHP tooling.
20HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
13stories submitted
135story points
5 years agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Tumblr about mathematics with good animations5 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 2General Theory of Relativity Visualized3 people · 9 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 31ucasvb's Math Animations3 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 4Mathematics is full of wonderful but relatively unknown theorems2 people · 89 points · first shared 2014 · 19 comments on HN
- 5Visualizing the cross product between two vectors1 people · 26 points · first shared 2014 · 7 comments on HN
- 6Animated continuous Fourier Transform of rectangular and sinc functions1 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 7The sine and cosine functions for the circle, as every student should see them1 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 8Can you flatten a sphere?1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 9The familiar trigonometric functions can be geometrically derived from a circle.1 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 10Easing functions for animation1 people · 1 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 11Im now open for donations1 people · first shared 2014
- 12Drawing process for the sine function since1 people · first shared 2014
- 13Saxpride100 hey were doing line integrals1 people · first shared 2014
- 14Figured id add a mass in there see also1 people · first shared 2016
What HN people wrote when they linked it
lbenes · 2016-02-19
LucasVB is another master of visualizing mathematics. He is responsible for some of the best math animations on Wikipedia.[1] If you like to know more about how he creates these masterpieces, check out his Blog.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LucasVB/Gallery
[2] http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/
ronaldx · 2014-01-19
This is by LucasVB, who is prolific at animating math for Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:LucasVB/Gallery
His other works are also worth checking: http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/
(for example, he has a super-nice explanation of Fourier series).
scrooched_moose · 2017-10-26
From his tumblr: http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/faq:
The 3D stuff (with shadows and such) was created using the excellent, free raytracer POV-Ray.
The rest were created using a custom-made PHP library that uses GD for graphics. The library adds a whole lot of functionality that isn’t present in GD or PHP: drawing anything with alpha blending, geometry and math primitives, 2D and 3D rotations (including quaternions), better anti-aliasing, object-oriented interface, etc.
jamessb · 2014-04-07
Lucas also has an interesting blog: http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/
And Matt Henderson has some good animations too: http://blog.matthen.com/
machbio · 2014-01-19
the guy is great with his animation, may be we can pitch and keep his work going.. http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/post/57176345908/im-now-open-for-donations
ximeng · 2014-01-19
The illustration of line integrals on a vector field took me four goes to figure out but is brilliantly clear.
http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/post/47754792344/saxpride100-hey-were-doing-…
mathteacher1729 · 2013-10-15
http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/ mathey
http://dvdp.tumblr.com/ artsy
vog · 2016-05-31
I like how this conveys the 3-dimensionality, in contrast to most othe visualizations. Also have a look at the animated version:
http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/post/142549026838/figured-id-add-a-mass-in-t…
Patrick_Devine · 2014-01-19
The first time I was able to properly visualize sine and cosine was from an old 8mm film reel produced in the 1950s by IBM which showed essentially this same animation:
http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/post/43524004530/drawing-process-for-the-sin…
After seeing that, trig really just "clicked".
alok-g · 2014-01-19
Interesting to note that the author, LucasVB, uses a custom PHP library using GD to make these animations. He explains why he finds alternatives like Processing, Matplotlib, etc. insufficient here:
http://1ucasvb.tumblr.com/faq