| ILLUSTRATING TIME'S SHADOW focusing on education and interesting practical aspects of sundial design FREE SOFTWARE ON THIS PAGE, and |
| 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. |
| Book purchase options are here... |

| 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 ~ click here SHADOWS www.shadowspro.com comprehensive, license is reasonable and free version covers many common needs , can upgrade to more features SUNSET www.yoredale.uklinux.net/programs/programs.htm sunset.xls good sunrise and sunset calculator SUNTIMES www.fv01.dial.pipex.com/suntimes.shtml program has a world map and sun times |
| 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. |
| 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 |

| MODERN GRAPHICAL SYSTEMS ~ FREE programs |

| LEGACY HARDWARE AND LANGUAGES FROM THE 1950s AND 1960s ~ FREE |
| LEGACY LANGUAGES FROM THE 1970s THROUGH THE 1990s ~ FREE |



| SPREADSHEETS ~ FREE |




| MODERN GRAPHICAL CAD SYSTEM PROGRAMS ~ FREE scripts ~ YOU purchase the CAD system |


| MODERN GRAPHICAL SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGES ~ FREE |
| my free sundial software is this page other people's Sundial specific Software is here |
| 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. |