That hasn't stopped French Thingiverse member Mojoptix from building one, however. It contains no electronics or moving parts, yet it still shows the time from 10:00 to 16:00 in a changing numerical display – with a little help from the sun.

First of all, there are indeed other digital sundials, although they generally don't have the traditional shadow-casting sundial form factor. Instead, they utilize optical fibers or layered masks, and are viewed face-on like a clock.

By contrast, Mojoptix's creation has the usual angled pointy bit in the middle (known as a gnomon), the shadow of which moves around in a circular path as the sun traverses the sky. Instead of pointing to numbers on the ground, however, that shadow displays the time in 20-minute increments within itself as it moves.

Mojoptix designed the sundial using free OpenSCAD software, then took about 35 hours to build it out of ABS plastic on his Ultimaker 2 3D printer.