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Although sundials are well-known instruments used to estimate the time by utilizing the Sun’s shadow, astrolabes are more sophisticated devices that can additionally predict the positions of stars or assist in triangulating a location.
Shadows is a program that allows you to create customized sundials and astrolabes using templates and preloaded calculations for various regions worldwide. Within the program, you can select different types of sundials, such as horizontal, polar, or equatorial, and pick from a wide range of countries and location settings. It provides geographic coordinates and time zone details for each location, which can be edited or supplemented with your own data if needed.
Once you’ve made your selection, the appearance of the sundial can be further customized. Options include selecting a 24-hour time format, adding extra lines to mark intervals of 30, 15, or 5 minutes, and choosing a specific shape – such as rectangular, elliptical, or hexagonal. You can also opt to include an analemma curve on each hour line and adjust it based on longitude corrections.
To determine the mean time for a specific date, you’ll need to reference the equation of time. This is represented by a curve that helps you calculate the value required to adjust solar time and convert it to mean time. Shadows provides a graph that indicates these values in minutes, which you can then incorporate into your calculations.
Once your sundial or astrolabe design is complete and all required parameters are configured, the final drawing can be easily printed directly from the application. The printout will include all the lines and markings you’ve chosen. Additionally, you can export your design as a DXF file compatible with AutoCAD.
Although Shadows is primarily intended for users with advanced knowledge of sundials and astrolabes, its user interface is friendly and intuitive. As long as you’re familiar with the relevant terminology or take the time to research beforehand, the design process is straightforward and accessible to both hobbyists and experts alike.
// Key Features //
- Plane sundials with polar style (horizontal, vertical declining, equatorial, polar, meridian dial)
- Drawing of the sundial to scale 1; Any dimension, orientation or reclination
- Suitable for any location on Earth, on northern or southern hemisphere (2800 locations pre-installed)
- Drawing of the style to scale 1, ready to be cut out
- Tables of coordinates of hour lines and declination lines
- Drawing of declination arcs and hour lines (solar or mean time), with or without longitude correction
- Moveable, resizable text frames, with list of pre-installed mottoes
- Drawing of the curve of equation of time, in various shapes
- Drawing of compass and azimuth circle
- Full on-line help, user interface translated into 17 languages.
- Declining-reclining plane sundials
- Analemmatic sundials
- Cylindrical sundials (shepherd’s dial, armillary sphere, …)
- Tables of solar and astronomical ephemeris
- Drawing of Italian and Babylonian hours
- Insertion of images for decoration
- Export of data and images
- Drawing of the construction layout (epure)
- Simulation of the shadow cast by a roof
- Animation in orientation and reclination of the sundial
- Tool for the calculation of the wall orientation
- Direction rose
- Mariners astrolabe
- Planispheric and universal astrolabes
- Vertical declining analemmatic sundial
- Bifilar sundials
- Drawings in azimuth and altitude
- Sidereal hours, unequal hours
- Animated 3D view of sundials
- 3D view of multiple sundials
- Solar graph with horizon mask
- Export of drawings in WMF and DXF (AutoCAD)
- Export of animations in AVI
- Tool for the calculation of sundial parameters from a photograph
- Efficiency graph of a solar panel
// Official Demo Video //
// Edition Statement //
AppNee provides the Shadows Pro Edition multilingual full installers and unlocked files, as well as portable full registered versions for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit.
// Installation Notes //
for v5.0.9228+:
- Download and install Shadows
- Copy the unlocked file to installation folder and overwrite
- Done
// Related Links //
// Download URLs //
| License | Version | Download | Size |
| Pro Edition | v5.2.0 |  |
46.6 MB |
(Homepage)
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