Hi Patrick & Henry. What a great idea! I wonder why nobody has mention this novel interactive horizontal dial before.
My client wants to donate a sundial to the university, but since it is in a very public place we wanted a design as vandal-proof as possible. Since gnomons are usually the part of a sundial that is vandalized first, a human gnomon is the perfect solution to vandals. My client knows nothing about sundials and didn't specify an analemmatic, but loved the idea of an interactive dial. Let's see. What should we call it? A movable perpendicular adult human gnomon with head nodus (as opposed to pinhead). But since the head nodus moves along the north south polar axis, I don't think that I could draw declination lines because they would be different depending on the different heights of people. Correct? thanks for the great idea! John
