ILLUSTRATING SHADOWS
focusing on education and interesting practical aspects of sundial design
     Illustrating Shadows ~  ISBN 0-9765286-8-1  ~  Lib Cong 2005900674

               
300+ pages of hands on, empirical, geometric, trigonometric, CAD,  and spreadsheet dial design
                                  with 100 pages of charts, tables, formulae, and lists of useful information 


THIRD EDITION ~ Table of contents.   This edition has expanded tables, more formulae,  and more detailed chapters on CAD, vrml. The best book on gnomonics. Much new material.  You get a free CD of booklets, spreadsheets, VRML/WRL files, templates, etc with the book. FOR A FREE SAMPLE... try Simple Shadows     PayPal here to buy.
                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                           
                 
Illustrating More Shadows ~ ISBN 0-9765286-9-X ~ Lib Cong 2006930654
This book continues Illustrating Shadows, and focuses on 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. Sample here.      Get CD here.
My PayPal page has the different options and prices
Book purchase options are here..

Visual Basic      notes on VB programming for dials
                                                 including graphical dial plate drawing 

                                                 
code for the 3 VB systems [ENVELOP, EXPRESS,
                                                 and NET] in correct folders in WINZIP form  
_____________________________________________________________
                                     
                                       F R E E                                                         
_____________________________________________________________


ENVELOP:             works on Windowx XP service pack 1 and 2
                             
http://www.freebyte.com/programming/compilers/envelop.html

                                       
This is a download a seven files, one install and six other parts totalling only 7mb. It installs
                                        easily, and  works well. Its .exe files work, but cannot be easily  exported to non Envelop
                                        computers due to required .dll files.  There is a "publish" tool available, but personal experience
                                        shows that some .dll files are not in the exported version. Nevertheless, a 7mb download for
                                        the Envelop Visual Basic is a lot better than the compicated 60mb download using the
                                        Microsoft Visual Basic Express.

                                        My notes may prove very helpful in getting started with Envelop.
Click here.  Six pages of useful
                                        information, and two pages on Microsoft's Visual Basic Express.

MICROSOFT EXPRESS:  works on Windowx XP service pack 2 (not on sp1)
                                      Their Visual Basic 2005 Studio Express version for Windows XP service pack 2 only  is about
                                        60mb after an initial 3mb download and is downloadable  for free for the hobbyist from their
                                        website:


                                      
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/downloads/default.aspx

                                       Creating published programs from this system is a typical Microsoft experience.
                                       The free Microsoft Visual Basic system is rather like lots of Microsoft software. Running the
                                       program it produces on another system is not simply a case of exporting it, rather it generates
                                       a series of tests of the target system, and a download of major proportions.

_____________________________________________________________
                                     
                                       L O W     C O S T
_____________________________________________________________

KBASIC                        
For between $35 and $40, this system is well worth looking at, and unlike the Microsoft
                                       stuff, it is portable across some operating systems.                                                      

                                      
http://www.kbasic.com
                                       _____________________________________________________________

VISUAL BASIC .NET 2003 For less than $100 this product is available from many online stores, has a solid book
                                       and the usual stack of Microsoft CDs. To locate this product, do an internet search on
                                       "
visual basic net 2003" and the product installs easily and works first time.             
                                       _____________________________________________________________


For the free 7mb Envelop Visual Basic system...

a horizontal dial                    A very simple Visual Basic program using the free Envelop VB system.            
     and .exe also                   Virus checked as of March 10, 2007 using Norton
is longitude corrected
                                                 however the .exe file cannot be run until you install the free Envelop VB
                                                 system on your computer. It works on Windows XP service packs 1 and 2.

and . . .                                    The notes here show not only the source code for the hour line tables,
                                                 they also show the code for the graphical depiction of the dial plate.                   

The
above in ZIP      220k    The Visual Basic source, executable, and notes in zipped format for the free
                                                 Envelop system.  The notes also discuss Microsoft's Visual Basic Express and Visual
                                                 Basic NET 2003, and also show the code for drawing graphically the hours lines
                                                 for a horizontal dial. The code is not in the .zip file because (1) it is in the
                                                 document and (2) "source" for Visual Basic consists of a lot more than just
                                                 the event driven code.                                                         
  OUR SPREADSHEETS ALSO                                                 
  PASCAL and sun dials - using the free compiler                                                
Email comments or questions to the author at:  illustratingshadows at yahoo dot com
  MAIN LISP for ProgeCAD (AutoCAD compatable)
  MAIN VIRTUAL REALITY PAGE                                                
MAIN Python PAGE     (alternative to JAVA, heavily supported, easy to manage)
  MAIN C and CPP [c++] PAGE                                               
  MAIN COBOL PAGE                                                
visual basic programming sundials
  MAIN BASIC FILE PAGE                                                
  FORTRAN and sun dials - using the free compiler                                                
MAIN JAVA PAGE      
MAIN PDA or Palm Pilot PAGE
  MAIN TURBO-CAD FILE PAGE      ( vbs macros, programming notes, and tcw files )
MAIN Octave PAGE
  MAIN DELTA-CAD FILE PAGE                                
MAIN Scilab PAGE
MAIN Euler PAGE