Hello All,
Sun Surveyor was developed to help photographers plan location shoots and predict the position of the sun at their location. That is why the graphical interface is the way it is, and also why it is keyed to the compass the way it is. The “Golden Hour” and other times of the day that are especially good for taking photography outdoors are duly noted with great detail. I actually worked with the developer Adam Ratana early on to get some useful features incorporated for dialists, like solar noon etc. but he never really tried to make it a dialing tool, nor was it intended as such. There is also an app called “Sundial” that I recently installed, and it keys into your GPS position automatically to show “clock time” “mean solar time”and “sundial time” but I would not recommend paying for it, since it leaves a lot to be desired. I wish I would have known about Sol Et Umbra before paying for that app! I also have an app that I have used for solar data in the field when I am working on sundial placements or figuring declinations, and it is called “PlanetDroid.” It is quite useful for dialing as well as for astronomy data, and is certainly worth a look. However, Sol Et Umbra is a real gnomonic app for sundialists, and it does many things very well. I have yet to benchmark it against known programs like Dialist Companion that I have been relying on for years, but it appears to be just the thing to provide the data we need, and I plan to start using it the next time I need solar data in the field. After calculating and making hundreds of Spectra sundials all over the world <http://www.artisanindustrials.com/world-of-sundials/artisan-sundials-world.html> for the past 10 years, I have grown quite familiar with the vertical dial format and how it changes based on location and declination. The “sundial” feature that has been incorporated into Sol Et Umbra was a bit jumpy on my Galaxy Nexus, but it was really great to be able to see the wire frame of hour lines change based on the orientation of the phone. I am sure it will get better and better as time goes on, and thank you Gian for doing such a nice job with it! Best, Jim Tallman www.spectrasundial.com www.artisanindustrials.com [email protected] From: sundial [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 2:21 PM To: [email protected] Subject: R: Re: new app "Sol Et Umbra" for Android I have just downloaded and had a look at SunSurveyor. It's a nice app, with a smart interface and nice graphs. But it's not for dialists. Where is the current value of the equation of time ? And where is the local time difference with respect to the time zone meridian ? When I look at a sundial I need to know which is the local true time, the time zone true time, the local mean time. Sometimes I also need to know which is the current italic time when evaluating an italic hours dial. I cannot find these info in this app. Moreover look at the azimuth value: it is expressed with one decimal figure. This corresponds to more than 20 seconds of time depending on the place latitude. This is not acceptable for dial design and check. Sol Et Umbra also features the possibility of dial simulation. This can be useful for educational activities but also for dials design (f.i. a friend of mine, a famous Italian dialists, intends to use SEU to show to the customer a first approximated drawing of the dial he will make). So my opinion is that these are two different apps with different purposes for different people. Sol Et Umbra is for dialists, Sun Surveyor it's not (but it has a wonderful graphic: I am jealous too !). Ciao. Gian
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