Interpolation of surfaces from scattered data points (made in VB6)

This is a software made in the great Visual Basic 6.0 programming language (advanced stuff). It contains routines for interpolation of surfaces from scattered data points. It includes the "kriging" interpolation (Kriging or Gaussian process regression is a method of interpolation for which the interpolated values are modeled by a Gaussian process governed by prior covariances, as opposed to a piecewise-polynomial spline chosen to optimize smoothness of the fitted values. Under suitable assumptions on the priors, Kriging gives the best linear unbiased prediction of the intermediate values. Interpolating methods based on other criteria such as smoothness need not yield the most likely intermediate values.), with the quadratic method of Shepard and the MASUB routine.

Download from PSC

Download from me

Screen animations:

A video of this project:

Source: http://www.flanguasco.org/VisualBasic/VisualBasic.html


Instructions to use of Surfit

(Automated translation from Italian)

This project includes three routines for 'interpolation of surfaces from scattered data points. L 'interpolation is performed in correspondence with the points located on a rectangular grid with the abscissa and the order dates.

Three routines are available:

1) KTB2D: geostatistical method particularly useful when the changes from point to point are too irregular to be represented by a mathematical function. Designed originally by 'mining engineer D. G. Krige (hence the name of "kriging") and' very used to interpolations and topographic 's image analysis. For good results it is necessary to "play" with little setup parameters (structure Par).

2) MASUB: algorithm based on triangulation of data points. It allows some control over the behavior surface interpolating (or even estrapolante) but I often found errors when the ends of the grid of interpolated points coincide with some of the data points.

3) QSHEP2D: running a 'quadratic interpolation of the data points. It also allows the direct calculation of the gradient of the surface and to evaluate the interpolated value of a single point (the other two routines are always working on all the points of a grid).

The data to be interpolated can be read (File / Read data files) from a file, which must be organized as:

XD (1) YD (1) ZD (1)
XD (2) YD (2) ZD (2)
...... ...... ......
 XD (ND) YD (ND) ZD (ND)

XD (I) and YD (I) are, respectively, the x-axis and the ordinates of the 'ith known point and ZD (I) the corresponding area value.

The points, interpolated, of the surface are calculated in the ZI rectangular matrix (1 To NXI, 1 To NYI) in correspondence of the abscissa and the ordinate contained in XI carriers (1 To NXI) and YI (1 To NYI). The NXI values, NYI (default: NXI = 50, NYI = 50) can be changed using the Settings table.

The interpolated data can be saved (File / Save interpolated data) of a file, which are organized as:

NXI NYI
XI (1) YI (1) ZI (1, 1)
XI (1) YI (2) ZI (1, 2)
....... ....... ............
 XI (1) YI (NYI) ZI (1, NYI)
XI (2) YI (1) ZI (2, 1)
....... ....... ............
 XI (NXI) YI (NYI) ZI (NXI, NYI)

The "Test" command allows you to visually assess the behavior of the three routines when applied to surfaces of Z equation (I, J) = F (X (I), Y (J)) note. The comparison is made between the surface area calculated analytically and the interpolated from a set of points generated randomly.

Note: the routines KTB2D, MASUB, QSHEP2D, Gradiente2D and CONREC are also available in the form of DLL (written in Digital Visual Fortran) recalled by VB and much more 'fast execution. Of SHEP2D also exist CSHEP2D versions (cubic interpolation) and TSHEP2D (interpolation series of cosines).

These DLLs are available on request at the author.

by F. Languasco

Microsoft Visual Studio user voice is biased: censorship covers incompetence in 2016

Hundreds of VB6 developers complain that their comments do not appear here:

http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/3440221-bring-back-classic-visual-basic-an-improved-versi

Today, visual studio through uservoice.com is covering their incompetence with censorship. Any comment pro VB .NET is allowed regardless of the language used. However, pertinent comments pro VB6 are deleted. Why ?!

Starting yesterday I am banned on http://uservoice.com/, also all my comments (ever made) have been wiped out ! (20 in total). All of them were pro VB6. 

Now, what kind of uservoice is that ?! 

I think increasingly louder that the model for this site is imposing views and not listening to views:

On the above page, visual studio uservoice has gradually removed thousands of comments each month. If their product (VB .NET and the .NET fr.) is not valuable enough and an older product today is considered the top of the top (namely the VB6 language), we really have to transform ourselves into communists and delete any pro VB6 comments ? Incompetence must be replaced with malice and censorship ?! 

Since 2014, there have been hundreds of ideas related to VB6 posted by people worldwide, and all were rejected and hidden away by uservoice.com.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team frustration rose last week since VB6 took a very important award in 2016 (wins the DICE technical impact award). This huge award that was received by the old Visual Studio team, responsible for the creation of VB6 and VS6 respectively, it was probably like a knife in the neck for the current VS team. The old team (with an activity until 1999) deserved this award since their languages are used in full force today. 

Regarding jobs, VB6 is much higher in demand than VB.NET ever has been. This is a real time plot for jobs (VB6 vs VB.NET).

On the other hand, data provided by administrators of a VB6 page on facebook shows that their posts are shown to more users than the page actually has, and that is very interesting, actually is huge (if you know something about facebook administration):

The Facebook algorithm tells them that most VB6 programmers are between 18 and 34 years old, and that there is a huge interest for VB6. Today it is enough to make a page about VB6 and anybody likes your page without doing much. This is how great is the interest for this language.

However, the general impression between programmers about the current VS team is:

On this page you have not seen a movement of this kind. Now it is important. Donate as little as you can for this great cause.
It is great to have around the most advanced VB6 projects at your fingertips. We all spend so much money on useless stuff, at least once let's do something that matters.

Donate here

Preservation of Visual Basic 6.0 open source code

This project represents an initiative for preservation of the most advanced VB6 open source codes from different sources (including those found on various corners of the Internet). Many of these advanced VB6 projects are not stored on PSC (Planet Source Code) or other convenient sources for immediate download.

This project will deliver a gigantic archive that incorporates all of these VB6 advanced source codes. This archive will contain folders with the following files:

1. The VB6 source code in ZIP/RAR format

2. A screen shot of the VB6 application (if appropriate)

3. A ReadMe.txt file describing the project.

The project will start from the moment the funds are raised. The project will last one month.

Really I do not know what to expect from this fundraising, We all spend so much money on useless stuff, at least once let's do something that matters. Donate here

VISUAL BASIC wins the technical impact award at The 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (2016)

Microsoft is awarded with the technical impact at The 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards (2016) for the creation of VISUAL BASIC programming language. The latest version of Visual Basic is Visual Basic 6.0:

Sources: 

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS)

2016 D.I.C.E. Technical Impact Award target announced

After 25 years, Visual Basic gets its due with DICE award win

2016 D.I.C.E. Technical Impact Award recipient announced

Microsoft to Receive Technical Impact Award at D.I.C.E Awards!

AIAS Honors Microsoft Visual Basic with Technical Impact Award

Microsoft Visual Basic Honored as AIAS Technical Impact Award Recipient

Microsoft Visual Basic Honored as AIAS Technical Impact Award Recipient

D.I.C.E award recipient for Technical Impact for 2016 has been announced

There are limits to what could be done without breaking a lot of things people expect from VB6 now (Dilettante wrote)

There are limits to what could be done without breaking a lot of things people expect from VB6 now.

Anything that requires a new runtime will become a disaster for many. People have come to rely on a stable VB6 runtime being preinstalled as part of Windows. That precludes any changes to the set of instrinsic controls, native I/O, and other built in classes and functions.

What could be done includes things like an updated IDE, a new C2.EXE aware of newer CPUs to generate more optimal code, more OCXs containing Unicode as well as ANSI controls, and new OCXs and DLLs that follow the shift from 1998 to now. In many cases all that is needed for the latter are some wrapper-OCXs or even just some typelibs for things already implemented in Windows... and then some more VB-friendly documentation. The main "shifts" I'm referring to include less need for ANSI support, more need for Unicode including UTF-8, prevalence of HTTP and web services, and things like that.

Most of that could be done piecemeal, i.e. they might leave the IDE alone except to add a few compiler options to be passed through to C2 - if even that. Or they might just ship a "libraries add-on pack" with those new OCXs, DLLs, and typelibs.

Any or all of that could be part of a new Service Pack.

More radical changes that actually resulted in a real VB7 (not VFred7) would mean the runtime deployment requirement returns. I don't really care for that unless it made things that I need possible, and most of what I want or need could be accomplished through that "service pack" approach I already described.

In a UAC/least-privilege world being able to package VB6 programs as "portable apps" using reg-free COM has been important. With a "new VB6" we would lose that because of the new runtime requirement... unless they found a way to make the runtime libraries portable as well.

Hmm...

I might have to take some of that back.

With a new IDE/compiler and C2.EXE pass 2 I suppose they could add to native I/O syntax and even add new Unicode pseudo-intrinsic controls by compiling them as calls into a statically-linked extender library. Then the existing Earth Standard VB6 runtime that is preinstalled in Windows could still be used.

This would bloat compiled programs, but how much depends on how many things they put into the extender library. I suppose that could be an optional DLL though instead.

But that's still a minor update, not a "new VB6" at all. Call it "VB6.1" maybe?

by Dilettante

Best NFS 3D Game made in Visual Basic 6.0 in 2016

This Visual Basic 6.0 open source project is one of the most advanced NFS-like games I have seen.

Download source code

The movie from below is at 10 fps, the game has more than 100 FPS, faster than anything I have seen before.

A 3D car model made in Visual Basic 6.0:

A visual basic source for 3D madels. The source code (Visual Basic 6.0) ca be downloaded from here:

http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=74690&lngWId=1

or here:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?605201-RESOLVED-Use-DX9-with-VB6!&daysprune=365

or here:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?680924-Access-of-Speed-2-Race-Game