World Map

Maps

Basic
Blue Marble
Polar (North)
Polar (South)
Azimuthal Equidistant (Phoenix)

Map Options

Use : -> Options to change the map’s options.

Sunlight (shadow)
Moonlight
Location (dot)
Graticule (minor grid lines)
Major Lines (equator, tropics, arctic circle)

Note

The map options are also applied to home screen widgets.

Play (animation)

Suntimes can animate the world map at different rates.

15m the frames are 15 minutes apart.
1d the frames are 24 hours apart.

Tap and to step through frames one at a time.

Tap to play the animation, to pause it, and to reset to the current moment.

Tip

Long pressing the map will also play the animation, and tapping it again will pause.

Suntimes can share individual frames, or record all frames in an animation.

Use : -> Share to share the current map view.

To share an animation, long press to start recording. When finished, tap (where the play button was previously) to share the frames (as .zip).

View Date

Use : -> View date to open other dialogs at the selected date/time.

Set Background

Suntimes can be configured to display a custom world map background.

Use : -> Center -> Set Background to change the map’s background image.

Download Backgrounds

To use backgrounds… Store full-sized images somewhere on your device, then open with Set background. Suntimes uses URI permissions to access images stored on the SD card.

Projection	Map Backgrounds (click for full-size image)
Equidistant Rectangular
Equidistant Azimuthal

Made with Natural Earth. https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/

NASA Earth Observatory. Blue Marble: Next Generation. https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484

Advanced

Creating Backgrounds

The background image should be a png or jpeg, with recommended dimensions 1024 x 512 or 1024 x 1024 or greater (will be scaled to fit the screen).
The default maps use vector data from Natural Earth, and raster data from Blue Marble: Next Generation.
The default maps use a white foreground (landmasses), and transparent background (ocean). The final coloring is determined by the app’s theme.
The graticule and other markings are drawn behind the background image (requires transparency).
The background image must have the appropriate map projection, center, and aspect ratio to align correctly.

World Map	Aspect	Projection	Center	proj4
Basic	`2:1`	Equidistant Rectangular	`[0,0]`	`+proj=eqc +lat_ts=0 +lat_0=0 +lon_0=0 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +a=6371007 +b=6371007 +units=m +no_defs`
Polar [north]	`1:1`	Equidistant Azimuthal	`[90,0]`	`+proj=aeqd +lat_0=90 +lon_0=0 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs"`
Polar [south]	`1:1`	Equidistant Azimuthal	`[-90,0]`	`+proj=aeqd +lat_0=-90 +lon_0=0 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=WGS84 +units=m +no_defs"`
Azimuthal Equidistant	`1:1`	Equidistant Azimuthal	`[LAT,LON]`	`+proj=aeqd +lat_0=LAT +lon_0=LON +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +a=6371000 +b=6371000 +units=m +no_defs"` where `LAT` and `LON` define the center of the projection.

A GIS application (e.g. QGIS) can be used to create new map backgrounds. The map data needs to be re-projected or warped (see proj4 definitions), and exported to an image with the appropriate aspect ratio. The final image should be optimized to reduce its size (e.g. pngquant).