Lukle Path

A dial plate is set out from two numbers: where you stand, and which way the wall faces. Give Lukle Path a latitude and a wall's declination and it scribes the plate for you - the noon line, every hour line at its own angle, the substyle, the style height, and the curves the shadow's tip walks at the solstices and the equinox. TWELVE DIALS Horizontal, equatorial, polar, vertical south, vertical decliner, analemmatic, armillary, scaphe, ring, card, shepherd and altitude. Read the hour-line angles off a schedule figured to a tenth of a degree. GNOMON AND PLATE Six gnomon forms and eight plate materials, each on its own sheet: what it suits, how it is cut, and where it gives trouble. FOLLOW THE SHADOW Drag the bead along the tip trace and Lukle Path reports the sun's altitude and azimuth, the date lines it crosses and the hour it marks. THE ALMANAC The equation of time month by month, so you know what to add to sun time to reach the clock. CHECK A REAL DIAL Photograph one in place, tap the gnomon base, the shadow tip and the plate edge, and Lukle Path works out the bearing, the shadow ratio, the solar time it keeps and how far it sits off true. File the reading; the photograph stays on your device and can be removed whenever you want. KEEP THE WORK Save a plate to the rack with its latitude, declination and figures, rename it, or clear the rack outright. YOUR OWN UNITS Millimetres or inches, plain degrees or degrees and minutes, your own meridian and time convention - set them once and every plate and every schedule follows. OFFLINE No connection is needed. Nothing leaves the bench. WHO IT IS FOR Dialists and sundial makers, garden and stonework builders setting a plate on a real wall, and anyone curious enough about gnomonics to want the angles right.