| ILLUSTRATING SHADOWS focusing on education and interesting practical aspects of sundial design FREE Excel SPREADSHEETS for Open Office, use these *** Try cubicShadows.xls spreadsheet very small, easy, and does most dialling stuff *** If you do not have Excel, consider downloading Open Office which runs these spreadsheets well. |
| FREE ~ DAY SPECIFIC SPREADSHEETS FOR DIALING ~ using Microsoft Office Excel (try the Palm Pilot Docs To Go versions also, here) NOTE: Most dial plates in these spreadsheets also show the dial plate graphically, and have a tool to correct the aspect ratio. The spreadsheet for Illustrating Shadows is in Excel format, and a version exists for Open Office also. This general dial spreadsheet (illustratingShadows.xls) has been enhanced based on demand. It has many many features. It begins with an index page followed by an almanac page, then a set of detailed pages. New stuff includes the astrocompass degree method correction (as opposed to the time method). Other spreadsheets exist for special one off calculator usage. TABLE OF CONTENTS Your latitude: eg 32.75 Your longitude: eg 108.20 Legal meridian longitude: eg 105 Julian day (1-366) eg 253 Astro compass degree method (versus time method) adjustment Almanac page with lots of data, and noon transit table for each day, you add (west) or subtract (east) long diff from legal time meridian. EQUATORIAL: Q-dial with calendar circle radii and sunrise/set horizontal line distances. HORIZONTAL: H dial [plus altitude and azimuth], VERTICAL: V dial, ...non decliner Ceiling dials V decliner (the standard formula, and also a new derived formula)(with charts) V meridian Polar dial Analemmatic Sunrise-set - EOT mm.ss Sunrise-set EOT decimal Reverse engineering an h-dial Legal standard time (not summer time) to sun's hour angle, optionally corrected for longitude and EOT, useful for astro compasses Wall declination (a major simplification and rewrite April 4) Middleton scales EOT combined with a longitude shift, useful for generic dials moved from the legal meridian Declining recliners Lunar phases Declination line design aid ~ ~ See Declining Shadows which is a summary, or Illustrating Time's Shadow which has an in depth discussion, for descriptions of this feature. Analemma curve ~ ~ any latitude and longitude, for any time whatsoever for h-dials (horizontal) at latitude 0 this is a polar dial, and reversing signs and hours, this works for a vertical dial, and by messing with the time while using SD and SH and D.LONG this works for decliners also. There are very few times and latitudes where this doesn't work well, and the spreadsheet makes it easy for you to "tweak" it. Actual formal design latitudes are +0 to +60, times are 08.00 to 16.00 Planispheric astrolabe (matches the DeltaCAD macro, or, see this page here for geometry of the astrolabe) |
| 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 |
| Email comments or questions to the author at: illustratingshadows at yahoo dot com |
| Book purchase options are here... |
script language=javascript type="text/javascript" src="http://ss.webring.com/navbar?f=j;y=illustratingshadows;u=defurl">
| *** NOTE *** these spreadsheets deliberately use several different EOT formulae, and they do not all agree. This is so people can play with different formulae. Just be aware that they differ sometimes by up to a minute. |
| Check the PocketC page also. This has the v-dial, v-dec, and h-dial programs, as well as an almanac and the astro-compass aid. as either complete .prc hot synch files, or as C files for PocketC, your choice. Graphical depictions. |
| The illustrating-shadows.xls spreadsheets have been reworked for PDAs, specifically the PalmPilot. The vertical decliner spreadsheet is shown to the left on a Palm T3. A new vertical decliner sheet and ceiling dials added. Display output has been reworked, hyperlinks removed and the sheets adapted for their removal, changes in formulae not supported by Documents To Go, size changes, and so on. The h, v, and v-dec dials are supported, three EOT sheets provided, analemmatic, armillary and equatorial dial calendar and hour data supported, calendar curves, and so on. |
| HINT: Just because you don't have a PDA, don't let that stop you from using these PDA spreadsheets. They are simpler than the main PC spreadsheets, and in some cases actually have more options, such as the calendar curves spreadsheet! |
| a2.2 suns LHA.xls a2.3 long-to-time.xls a2.4 julian days.xls a2.6 time-zones.xls a2.9 mag to true.xls a3.1 v-h dials.xls a3.1 v-h dials with graphs.xls a3.2 ceiling data.xls a4.1 suns altitude.xls a4.2 suns azimuth.xls a4.3 analemmatic dial.xls a4.4 calendar curves.xls a5.1 vertical decliner.xls a5.1 vdec sws formula.xls a6.3 sunrise set EOT~Lat.xls a6.4 sunset and italian lines.xls a9.9 graph hour lines.xls |
| a0.0 almanac.xls a0.0 analemma figure of eight.xls a0.0 astro compass.xls a0.0 inclined decliner.xls a0.0 planispheric astrolabe.xls a0.0 unknown dial.xls a0.0 wall-declination.xls a1.1 trig.xls a2.1 EOT astro mini.xls a2.1 EOT astro.xls a2.1 EOT other.xls a2.10 meridian polar hour-calendar.xls a2.11 daily declination.xls a2.12 equatorial calendar radius.xls a2.13 armillary calendar line distances.xls |
| Excel NOTE: When you start the spreadsheet, no menu of links to all the other sheets appears UNTIL you enter a Julian day. This is to allow you to enter any Julian day, and only when you have selected a Julian day will the rest of the menu appear. If you want change cell from... 0 to.... =e6 |
| Tested on Documents To Go 7.006 and on 10.0020 and the graphics on the Palm are supported, for example in the EOT astro sheet and the figure of 8 analemma sheet. Click the graph button below the spreadsheet cell data entry area. PDA XLS zip file is here. |
| FREE ~ TABULAR SPREADSHEETS FOR DIALING ~ (These produce annual tables rather than details for one day) Whereas the two spreadsheets for Illustrating Shadows are all in Excel format (the main sheet and the astronomically accurate EOT sheet) produce full screen detailed information, usually for a specific day or limited range of days, these spreadsheets for tables produce the tables used in the appendices for the Illustrating Shadows series of books. The names are similar to the names and functions of the PDA specific spreadsheets. The ZIP file is here. |
| Please read these notes here that discuss Microsoft Office, and Open Office |
| PDA A collection of spreadsheets ready for Documents To Go on a PDA |
| However, if you do that, and then enter a specific Julian day other than today, and then save t, you may forget you did that and thus misread results. |
| The most complex spreadsheet is IllustratingShadows.xls pictured to the right. |
| THE FOUR Excel SPREADSHEETS INCREASE IN COMPLEXITY microShadows h-dial only (extremely simple) simpleShadows h-dial, simple alt, azi (very simple) quickShadows h,v,v-dec,q,a,p alt, azi (simple) illustrating… all functions (full strength) |
| There are four main spreadsheets, microShadows (and its free book), simpleShadows (and its free book), cubicShadows (and the Cubic Shadows free book), and the main spreadsheet: illustratingShadows.xls, (formerly illustrating-shadows.xls) available in Excel (.xls), Open Office (.ods), and MS Works form (.wks). Each is more complex than the last. The archived original spreadsheet is here if interested, but it is not kept up to date. |
| 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. |
| If you download the spreadsheet, do a SAVE first and then a RUN, if you do RUN directly then the hyperlinks will not work. |
| illustrating-shadows.xls was renamed to illustratingShadows.xls for compatibility reasons. |