This 3D-printed sundial casts a shadow that looks like a digital clock

Even for the old-school sundial, analog is out and digital is in, in a manner of speaking. French Etsy retailer Mojoptix has created a 3D-printed sundial that uses an intricate system of holes to display time like a digital clock, no batteries needed.

Using an extraordinarily articulated dial, the apparatus uses light and shadow to display the time in 20-minute increments between 10:00a.m. and 4:00p.m.

Mojoptix’s not-so-digital sundial takes 35-hours to print and each one is made individually, something the shop describes as requiring “a lot of patience.”

Fulfilling your sundial trivia needs, Mojoptix’s device is technically a “gnomon,” the shadow-casting portion of the ancient tool. The company prints these gnomons on Ultimaker 2 3D printers using 0.1mm and 0.2mm layers of ABS plastic.

“No batteries, no motor, no electronics… It’s all just a really super-fancy shadow show,” says Mojoptix. “The shape of the sundial has been mathematically designed to only let through the right sunrays at the right time/angle. This allows to display the actual time with sunlit digits inside the sundial’s shadow.”