I spent the weekend picking up the basics of Manim, a Python library used for making maths animations - most famously for the YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown.
In need of something to make, I decided to try and visualise some common SQL joins, as it’s something I’ve been teaching lately. They’ve come out quite nice, so now you get to enjoy them too!
Inner join
Left join
Outer join
But how was Manim?
A very strange mix of ‘incredibly easy’ and ‘mind-boggling’. You can get some basic things up and running surprisingly quickly, but then little things like fonts and colours will be hair-pulling time drains. And I definitely don’t think I’m using it to the best of its ability here. But overall I recommend it!
I want to shout out this video from Brian Amedee as a good resource for getting to grips with Manim, alongside the main docs!
Can I use these?
Yes! In fact, if you’d like any higher-res versions for use in something, please drop me an email and I’ll be happy to provide. You can also find the (probably poorly optimised) code for these animations on GitHub here.
