[froggerexpert]

The sunlight plot is interesting.

Since Dec wraps around to Jan, you can fold the left and right to make a tube.

Since 23:59 wraps to 00:00 you can fold the top and bottom of the tube, making a torus (a donut).

For a fixed lat/long, each point on the torus corresponds to the sunlight observed at a particular time throughout the year. Why bother with a torus? The shape itself embeds the continuity of time across days/years that is otherwise left implicit in the typical 2D plot.

I've wanted to plot this in 3D or have it printed on a ring, but never got round to it.

Any one seen anyone do this?

[jagged-chisel]

So a toroidal illustration of our trip around the sun with the “amount of sunlight” graph along it … someplace.

Sounds neat!

[froggerexpert]

Yes, exactly!

[Centigonal]

You got me curious, so I gave it a try with the graphic in the article!

https://www.loom.com/share/5665143f2d274bd0bf65ef378fad39a3

There's two toruses in the clip, one with the daylight on the inside, one with the daylight on the outside.

One thought I had while making this is that you could visualize multiple years, or even someone's whole life, as a string winding a long spiraling path down the length of a helix.

[froggerexpert]

Very cool. What program is that?

It'd also be nice if the colour was not just day/night, but the actual predicted daylight at the time of day, which would result in a continuously changing colour.

I guess at that point, the sine approximation from OP would no longer apply, and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation would have to be used.

[Centigonal]

It's Blender! Great OSS project.

[jpm_sd]

Related:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma