Sundial Sun Dial Sundials Sun Dials Design Book Books articlesspreadsheets Gnomics Gnomonics Horology Dialling Dialing Clocks EOT
Equation of time Middleton Sciathics Lunar Moon construction hobby gnomon cutout popup building astro compass astrocompass shepherd
ogee azimuth altitude hour angle Jaipur VRML ecliptic ISB virtual worlds kids teaching learning
ILLUSTRATING TIME'S SHADOW    
focusing on education and interesting practical aspects of sundial design                  
FREE SOFTWARE ON THIS PAGE
FREE  or LOW COST ~ GOOD  ADMINISTRATIVE SOFTWARE  FROM  ELSEWHERE

JAVA (the IDE plus the JDK)    You need the IDE and the JDK   my dials are here

Free CAD   CADstd: Works well, you need to pay close attention to snaps otherwise you will get very frustrated with trying  to draw
angles. Not programmable.
For 3D CAD, a free system is ProgeCAD, see above, programmable with LISP.

Acrobat viewer     Essential for the books on this web site. Also, as I add hyperlinks for VRML and video to the  booklets, this is the only
way to go. Hyperlinks in Acrobat are smooth, the same hyperlinks in  Word cause endless security warnings.

Word, Excel, Powerpoint viewers      Look but don't touch software.

Open Office  Almost 100% compatible with Excel and Word, free. The few incompatibilities  are fixed by my having Open Office
versions of the main spreadsheets.
  

VRML browser plugin   Cortona for Mozilla, Netscape, and  Internet Explorer,   Needed for vrml browsing.   see my stuff here

standalone VRML viewer    Standalone viewer, good for vrml objects, less  so for virtual worlds, use a web browser offline for that. It
does offer chroming the colors, neat.
FREE ~ VRML SOFTWARE

Before using any virtual world (.wrl), you must have a browser plug-in. Otherwise all you will see is coding. I have only tested and used
the Windows versions of this software. Don't view vrml figures without the plug-in.

WINDOWS:    Browser:  Cortona (4.2 and 5.0)   This shows virtual world scenes so you can walk around and view them. This web  
page has several worlds, the Jaipur observatory    is perhaps the most complex, yet it is small. This
web page has some individual
vrml models.
Scene builder:  
ISB    This builder is from Parallel Graphics who has   excellent support. The ISB is a scene builder, and is free if you
have less than a number of   surfaces. For under $100 you get the unlimited  version. Having used vrml since 1998, this is easy to use
and cost effective.

MAC:                 Browser:  Cortona OSX and Cortona MAC     I have not tested nor used the MAC products.
FREE  ~ GOOD  SUNDIAL SOFTWARE  FROM  ELSEWHERE

SHADOWS           www.shadowspro.com           
                     comprehensive, license is reasonable and free version covers many
                     common needs , can upgrade to more features

ZW2000        
       http://www.de-zonnewijzerkring.nl/eng/index-links.htm
                     has graphical depictions, and includes extra features at no cost

Sundi     
              http://www.myoptics.at/sundi/gallery.html
CAD PROGRAMS ~ ~ ~ personal preference DeltaCAD for programmability, TurboCAD for drafting and 3d.

Apart from the free CAD program mentioned above, this web site and the books all used TurboCAD deluxe which is around $100, and
additionally they have an animation add-on at an extra price.
IMSI provides TurboCAD. Some of my TurboCAD tcw files are here.  This
is a full 3d CAD system, very popular, and well worth the cost. Scripting exists only at the TurboCAD Professional level, see
here for a
VBS script or two.

Other products exist, such as
ProgeCAD which has a LISP scripting language.

DeltaCAD is a 2d only system, however it has a powerful scripting language that they call macros.
DeltaCAD is available for around
$70 and you can see some of
my macros here.               

FREE PROGRAMMABLE SYSTEMS ALSO EXIST ~ such as NanoCAD and FreeCAD, free, programmable, and have
Illustrating Shadows macros for them.
The objective of ILLUSTRATING SHADOWS and it's web site is to use software that is either free or costs less than about $100.
Nothing is truly free, so if you like a product, consider buying their purchased versions which have more features and better options.
Hint - feel free to
buy the CD of my  book ILLUSTRATING TIME'S SHADOW
IBM 360 BAL simulator with
assembler, linker, executor and
sundial programs. Open source
for entire simulator and
programs. Has vertical and
horizontal dials.
MODERN GRAPHICAL SYSTEMS
ALGOL 68 a free Algol 68 system and a sundial program see my stuff here
IBM 7090
a FORTRAN II
graphical simulator,
by another author,
but with my sundial
programs.
LEGACY HARDWARE AND LANGUAGES FROM THE 1950s~1960s  FREE
IBM 1401 SPS and Autocoder
simulator with assembler, linker,
executor and sundial programs.
Open source for entire simulator and
programs. Has vertical and
horizontal dials.
BASIC a free BASIC compiler with many
sundial programs.
see my stuff here
ADA  and one of my sundial programs.
And where to get a free ADA system.
C AND C++ A free IDE for C and C++
that matches the 8mb IDE for PASCAL.
The notes in the zip file updated to
compare with Visual C++  
my dials are
here
PASCAL systems     and also this one     A free 8mb fully integrated development environment (IDE)  - modern windows layouts,
www.bloodshed.net/devpascal.html , and ditto at 28mb www.freepascal.org/ with excellent documentation but  DOS windows type  see
my stuff here         ALSO, see LAZARUS below which is a GUI Pascal system with graphical and forms support, the IBM 1401 and 360
simulators are written in Lazarus.
LEGACY LANGUAGES FROM THE 1970s~1990s   FREE
EULER A free mathematical system,
however,
these dials show how you can  
program Euler for dials, tabular right now.
SCILAB A free mathematical system, however,
these h- v- and vdec dials show how you can  
program Scilab for dials, tabular and graphical.
Octave  Like Euler and Scilab, and I have
free dial programs for Octave
NOTE: As with my Euler etc programs, the DELTACAD scripts also provide animation of the dial plate while varying a parameter.
SPREADSHEETS
DeltaCAD      The standard for dialling, I
provide h and v dials, decliners,
Capuccin
and the
Astrolabe, and animation, the
infamous
inclined decliner, an almanac, and
many variants, etc, with optional
animation.
see my stuff here
PocketC  Both source and
standalone .PRC
dial
programs for the Palm Pilot
PDA, plus an almanac.
ProgeCAD 2d CAD  Large and full featured, free. Has LISP and C++ like scripting.   The LISP method of
programming harks back to an earlier age. CADstd (not programmable) and DeltaCAD (programmable) are perhaps
better choices for 2d dialling. I have h-dial, v-dial, and v-dec scripts that work but DeltaCA is still my choice for  
programability, and TurboCAD for non programmed drafting and 3d modeling. Check my LISP page which tells
you how to get ProgeCAD from ProgeSOFT:  
my LISP page has good notes, and also an h-dial, v-dial, and a v-dec
dial as well.  ProgeCAD is a good product, well worth checking out. Its purchased version supports Visual Basic
 
TURBOCAD Professional not free,
but supports
VBS scripting, and with version
15 also supports parametric scripts (
PPM)
which are very interesting.
NOTE: As with my DeltaCAD
program scripts, these also
provide
animation of the
dial plate while varying a
parameter.
MODERN GRAPHICAL CAD SYSTEM PROGRAMS
Lazarus  Open Source free Delphi equivalent, see my page here.
Free, portable across many computers, very similar to Delphi. H, V,
and VDEC dials.
Visual Basic    A small free Visual BASIC IDE (7mb) from
Envelop.   
see my stuff here
There is a free small system Envelop), a free Microsoft
system, and a full scale purchased system from Microsoft.
Python     The JAVA
replacement, and
my
dials are here along
with notes.

And my
JAVA stuff is
here also.
FORTRAN IV a free FORTRAN compiler,
my sundial programs.
see my stuff here
COBOL yes, believe it or not, and one of
my sundial programs.
MODERN GRAPHICAL SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGES    
Microsoft Excel     Microsoft MS Works          see here for smartPhone
my free sundial
software is on this
page, as well as
other useful
software links
Illustrating Time's Shadow
ISBN 0-9765286-8-1  plus  0-9765286-9-X
Lib Cong 2005900674  plus  2006930654

Merges Illustrating Shadows and Illustrating More Shadows, deletes duplicated material,
and techniques that are complex and replaced by easier methods, adds new material.

Hands on, empirical, geometric, trigonometric, CAD,  and spreadsheet dial design for small dials plus garden dials using common
masonry supplies, clay, and glass, with emphasis on many calendar line techniques, and inclined decliners, while providing details
on the use of DeltaCAD programming including the animation of many sheets as parameters vary.  Case studies abound with
associated problems solved, and cover the infamous inclined decliner, as well as all the other kinds of outdoor dials.  The printed
book comes with a CD of booklets, spreadsheets, VRML/WRL files, templates, etc with the printed book. The CD has all books and
booklets and programs along with source code.  
You can get the printed book and CD, just the CD, or an online download here.
Please note that Excel files ( .xls ) can be used and modified by the free Open
Office system and also by the Kingsoft software (which along with e-droid-cell
can run on an Android cell phone).
NanoCAD ~ programmable in VBS
and Java Script

FreeCAD ~ programmable in Python

Both are free. Both have many of the
Illustrating Shadows macros converted
from DeltaCAD