May 27, 2009
 The developers at Chemical Wedding have released version 1.2 of their Helios sun position calculator iPhone application. Helios is a convenient tool for all professionals who need accurate information about the path of the sun from dusk to dawn, on any given day, in any given place. Designed primarily as an aid to cinematographers, Helios is an essential tool for any professional who needs to predict the position of the sun at a specific time and how that may influence the planning of a shoot. Gaffers, grips, production designers and first assistant directors will already be aware of the value of this information. Other professionals, from architects to landscape gardeners will be able to predict sun exposure in the field without the need for specific tables or graphs.
Helios operates in three modes:
• HeliosMeter (above, left) is a graphical representation of the position of the sun (azimuth) on a compass dial for any time of day, indicating the sun's elevation and the length of shadow it would cast.
• Skyview (above, right) is a graphical at-a-glance representation of the sun's path across the sky on a given day.
• Raw Data view provides numerical information where figures are preferable.
Helios has an internal database of over 25,000 cities around the world, providing longitude, latitude, timezone and daylight savings information. There is an ability to save favorite locations and add the current locations from GPS data (when available). The v1.2 update offers e-mail functionality. You can now send a table of sun position data to anyone who needs it, right from within the app.
The ability to jump to date and jump to time was also added, as per user requests. Helios is available through iTunes.
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