Donkey Kong Country focal coordinates

So I'm working on a ROM hack for Donkey Kong Country. I'm aware there are at least two editors available, the good old dkedit and the very feature-rich DKCRE.
However, I'm a Mac user, and I can only use dkedit. Using it is not very fun, and in fact I've got most of the stuff done with a hex editor and some helper tools I wrote for myself. Editing sprites and banana formations is something I can do pretty easily, as is editing the level terrain, but the camera/focus area stuff is something I just can't grasp. DKCRE supposedly can edit these focus areas, but I'd rather work with a hex editor. I just don't know how they work!
Giangurgolo's original documents say the following:

v1.0 (U) [!] headerless ROM
----------------+------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3C8000 - 3C81CB | PTR  | screen dimension/parameter pointers (subtract 4 for real actual start of data)
----------------+------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3C9038 - 3CAC91 | DATA | screen dimensions/parameters
                |      | byte 1,2   screen starting coordinate on tilemap
                |      | byte 3,4   screen ending coordinate on tilemap
                |      | byte 5,6   
                |      | byte 7,8   
                |      | byte ...   screen focal coordinates (4 bytes each focus point)
                |      | FFFF = end data
----------------+------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But it's difficult to visualise something like that. I mean, I can traverse the pointer array and I get where the data is stored and how the bytes are arranged but I still can't grasp my mind around how it actually works.

You Wrote:dude why don't you just use DKCRE and edit some camera points and observe your changes in the corresponding offsets?

I tried opening the executable in WINE, doesn't work at all. Tried Codeweavers' CrossOver, still no. I installed a Virtual Machine with Windows 7 on it, no dice. I could still dual boot I guess but come on.

You Wrote:dkedit can edit the focal coordinates too, why don't you edit them with that instead?

While I can run dkedit, it only displays the raw values of "x", "y", "ymax" and "speed" and doesn't explicitly draw anything on top of the level itself so I could understand what's going on.

In the end, I don't really want to even use DKCRE or dkedit, I just want to understand how the camera works.

so here's the deal: you look into it and explain how the camera works to me like i'm a baby. I don't care how - do a YouTube video tutorial, a long post with loads of screenshots, draw an infographic with an extremely clear explanation... just as long as I go "aaaaah now i get it" in the end.

You Wrote:what's in it for me?

you get 10 bucks on paypal