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Some thoughts on why there are no plans for ZWDS calculator.(12.Mar.2025)
12.Mar.2025
One interesting question that comes up from time to time, for me, is should I make ZWDS online calculator. Lately that has become a question again as Da Liu Ren do seem to use some plates and stuff that are used in ZWDS as well. Also seems to be new interesting books about it. And there may be other big systems that ZWDS can be used as a stepping stone to.

The reason I haven't done it so far, and I still can't see it as a working option is mostly related to time.
I have had reasons to think there may be 2 or 3 people that I have seen that may get some valid result with the system. Problem is they all use different way to calculate the Time and the charts are entirely different depending on the time.

We had Lim that wrote apperently good books about it. Yet he mentiones that using Chinese time can't work, we have to use Solar Time at place of birth. We have other practitioners insisting that only Chinese time can work. Others use other forms of time, more on that later.
Then one has to wonder, if they read entirely different charts with the same rules, how reliable can a system like that be?
If it produces "valid" output no matter what chart one reads, then it seems the chart is irrelevent and that means the system is irrelevent. As the output can't really be valid, they have to be judging it in misguided way.

And then lets say we decide to still try it. We get a few ways to approach it.
1. Clock time at place of birth. That is what many practitioners out there advice for bazi.
2. Solar Time at place of birth. That is again what many advice.
3. Other type of time, based on stars or something else, that seems to be how the people used it long time ago with specific star alignments.

So far, so good. To be fair its same in bazi. However, in bazi we can still use the rest of the chart and figure out the time. Here the chart is fully different based on the time alone.
Then we get:

1. Clock time in China in specific city.
2. Solar time in China in specific city.
3. Star or other time in China in specific city.

Also doable.
Yet as we don't know why we use Chinese time, it may turn out its more suited to specific place in China, not necceserily a popular or administrative city, but other place, a mountain or something else in there.
Since China is big, then it may be any place in there. While for clocktime that isn't a problem, for Solar time that will provide different times. Then we have thousands of not millions of different types of times we could use to make the chart, as there are different places. As the place it aligns to may be any place in China.

So far so good, that is not possible to work with. Then we try to work backwards. We make all types of charts and we see if one of them fits perfectly to the events.
Problem with that is that if someone tries to do it with bazi it won't really work. There is much one needs to learn to get used to what to watch and expect it to be there, in my humble view.

So I did tried, making charts for all of the main types of Time in ZWDS, none of them seems so valid as to be taken without a doubt.

So at this point the working theory is that ZWDS just doesn't work, if it was made as stepping stone to more powerful systems it was too focused on what to learn, then in actual principles working in practice.
I can't say I have seen a sure indication of the opposite. There have been few people that do seem to have thought it works through the years. Yet people tent to find meaning where there may not be one. So the fact many thinks it may work is normal, that is how our brains work. It doesn't mean it is, however, in some cases that is just surface impressions and connections, no deeper working mechanics may be present. In other cases people use intuition to do reading, no working rules.

If ZWDS practitioners want to bring their system to the west, first they have to figure out how its possible that everyone that wrote on the topic used different time, so was reading entirely different charts and still thought it was valid. That is a obsticle that until there, its very difficult to take a system as something that could show real processes.
Without that, could still works if we see the system actually working. Although no way to be sure that is a real valid example as well.

So what can be done... I don't think anything can be done, at least from where I am. Even if we have someone that actually does read charts succesfully and uses any of these times in the open. Still won't help much, as they wil just pile up one more possible Time with one more possible "chart reading method", that will just muddy it all even more. When we start to read Lim or others they will still advice something contradictionary and insist nothing else can ever work. Considering that, I would guess there is nothing that could be done now.

Conclusion. ZWDS is unusuable in the west, for me at least, in the current state and I can't think of a way that could possibly fix that in the future. No point in calculators, will aim for DLR, directly. That is if we want it to be more then "cold reading" stuff, where any system can work, so no reason choosing so complex one.Few looks around in metaphysical communities and we can see there aren't many that use it in the West, either I would asume for similar reasons then what was explained so far.
Da Liu Ren and the other astrological systems connected to it... If one wants to learn them will have to be done without ZWDS, and if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. No way around it, in my humble view.

This hasn't changed though, it was the same view 10 years ago, more or less. Just seems good idea to explain it, as I'm not sure I ever did.
How to select the best Magnetic Model for our use case(5.Mar.2025)
5.Mar.2025

 I'm looking at some materials for qi zheng si yu, lately and ended up on this one:
https://sites.google.com/site/athomeprojects/home

I can see they have put much effort on this its also open source and that is awesome(although its on java and that is a mess to translate to other languages). But they are using WMM here... While I don't know what they are using it for, considering this is astrological program for any intended use it would have to go back in time. And for that, one isn't supposed to use WMM, as that is predictive model. That basicaly means its used just to guess what the field may be in a year or 4 years forward in time. So very current and not suppose to be great for far back.


Seems a good time to make a humble clarification here. All these models(and there are many), they have their requirements. For example using IGRF for thousand years back or using WMM for 30 years back, this is not going to work. With help of chat gpt, here is a list of some popular models out there and when we can use them:


Main Geomagnetic Models and Their Time Spans

    World Magnetic Model (WMM)
        Time Span: 2020–2025 (updated every 5 years)
        Purpose: Predicts Earth's main magnetic field for navigation, GPS, and aerospace applications.

    International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF)
        Time Span: 1900–Present (updated every 5 years)
        Purpose: Describes Earth's magnetic field for scientific research and historical data analysis.

    Comprehensive Model (CM)
        Time Span: ~1960–Present
        Purpose: Combines satellite and ground observations for detailed magnetic field analysis.

    CHAOS Model
        Time Span: 1997–Present
        Purpose: High-resolution model used for detailed studies of the geomagnetic field and core dynamics.

    Historical Models (e.g., gufm1)
        gufm1 (1590–1990): A historical model reconstructed from ship log data.
        CALS (e.g., CALS10k, CALS3k): Models extending back thousands of years.

    Paleomagnetic Models
        Time Span: -2000 to +4000 (past 2000 years to future 2000 years)
        Examples:
            PFM9k (past 9000 years)
            Korte & Constable 2005 model (back to ~7000 BC)
        Purpose: Used for studying long-term geomagnetic variations, pole reversals, and Earth's core evolution.
        
        
So if we want, lets say to study what happened with the magnetic declination 1100 years back in China we choose a model like cals7k.2 and compile it from fortran if we can't find it online. We do not use IGRF as that is not meant for this and it won't provide correct values.

If we, however, want to figure out the magnetic field when someone was born, so lets say 50 years back or 100, we use IGRF, we don't use WMM as that one is not even suppose to output value that far back and is purely predictive model, its suppose to try to guess the field next few years so pilots and other people can have some guidelines with the fast changing field last few decades.
Hopefully this is helpful, if someone needs to use any of this, just look at the Time Span and choose a model that covers that. Most of them are very easy to run, just need some fortran for most cases. Some even run in python or javascript as well.

The 3 Plates and True North(7.Feb.2025)
Edit:21.February.2025
Removed an article here, about the Magnetic Declination through the years. The reason for removing it is that, I based all conclusions there on the idea that the calculation in a book mentioned there were done correctly, that were calculation of the field for years 900 and 1100, without testing it before. It seemed very important point of view.
I redid it, today, using long term magnetic model, and the result seems very far away from the values in the original material. So seems fair to remove the misleading information and will just leave the Images, even though not very useful now, but still nice. Also no point mentioning the book or the author in this way, as we seem to arrive at very different calculations, so pulling away from source there seems wise thing to do.
1.The middle Man Plate of the 24 mountains...
120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 壬 癸 戌 乾 亥 火 火 土 土 火 金 木 酉 庚 辛 申 未 丁 丙 甲 卯 乙 寅 艮 丑 辰 巽 巳 子 午 Fire Fire 火 Fire Earth Earth Wood 木 Wood Metal 火 土 金 Fire Earth Metal Water 火 Water 火 Fire 木 Wood 火 土 金 Fire Earth Metal 火 Water 火 Fire 木 Wood 土 金 Earth Metal 火 Water 坤 West 2You 酉 West 1Geng 庚 SW3Shen 申 SW 2Kun 坤 SW 1Wei 未 S2Wu 午 S3Ding 丁 S1Bing 丙 N2Zi 子 N1Ren 壬 N3Gui 癸 NW 1Xu 戌 NW 2Qian 乾 NW 3Hai 亥 West 3Xin 辛 East 1Jia 甲 East 2Mao 卯 East 3 Yi 乙 NE 3Yin 寅 NE 2Gen 艮 NE 1Chou 丑 SE 1Chen 辰 SE 2Xun 巽 SE 3Si 巳


3. The Heaven Plate is moved 7.5 degrees on the left, instead of the right as in Mans plate. ..
120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 壬 癸 戌 乾 亥 木 酉 庚 辛 申 未 丁 丙 甲 卯 乙 寅 艮 丑 辰 巽 巳 子 午 火 Fire 火 Fire 火 Fire 火 Fire 火 Fire 火 Fire Wood 木 Wood 木 Wood 木 Wood 木 Wood 木 Wood 金 Metal 金 Metal 金 Metal 金 Metal 金 Metal 金 Metal 火 Water 火 Water 火 Water 火 Water 火 Water 火 Water 坤 West 2You 酉 West 1Geng 庚 SW3Shen 申 SW 2Kun 坤 SW 1Wei 未 S2Wu 午 S3Ding 丁 S1Bing 丙 N2Zi 子 N1Ren 壬 N3Gui 癸 NW 1Xu 戌 NW 2Qian 乾 NW 3Hai 亥 West 3Xin 辛 East 1Jia 甲 East 2Mao 卯 East 3 Yi 乙 NE 3Yin 寅 NE 2Gen 艮 NE 1Chou 丑 SE 1Chen 辰 SE 2Xun 巽 SE 3Si 巳
New Blog with Reviews(19.Nov.2024)
New day, new blog hehe
ok so as I mentioned somewhere before, here I plan to write some reviews about different books, mostly related to the Five Arts. Some wonderufl material out there and since many of the old community places are gone, I guess new enthusiasts may not know where to look and what is out there. The idea is to point out to some of the stuff that I like and find useful. Its here: https://brighthallreviews.blogspot.com
New Calculator and Napoleon's Book of Fate(Oraculum)(18.Nov.2024)
Hi!
The plan for our next calculator is to add Napoleon's Book of Fate(Oraculum).
The original version had very interesting story with it, one can read here:
https://archive.org/details/b29321876/

With the help of chatgpt and some digging around our current position is that this is likely not true(doesn't come from Egypt), be that as it may the system used looks very much like one of the systems called "geomancy"(16 symbols with 2 or 1 characters creating figures etc.) and that is used all over the world, even in Africa with other names. The idea is to start adding some parts of it in the site and this is very good initial step, as it has text that comes with the symbols, something that in other places is missing. Later on the plan is to add more calculators on that, maybe from the African point of view, as the story there seems fascinating as well.

Would have been nice if we had some proof that in Egypt that was used so long ago... But for many reasons that seems very unlikely, so lets just add it as interesting and curious system, made unknown by whom and with that story supporting it, true or not.
As one can use that to get used to making the figures then later on we (maybe) will go deeper into how to have more flexibility in reading the figures without reading premade texts, when we move to other forms of Geomancy, outside of the Oraculum
Update:6.Jan.2024: Well, if one is interested in that in the book mentioned above can see the full system, I guess I will stay with the Five Arts systems, I really like them so branching far out to this doesn't seem needed. Will give Liu Ren a try, next. : )
More on the Solar Scripts(5.Nov.2024)
Hi!

 Lets go a little more into the Solar Time Scripts, that were released some time ago(more info at):
Our Solar Time Scripts release...(18.February.2023)

This are Javascript files(mostly) for finding Solar Time based on a position in a map. More info in the archived posts at the bottom of the page here.
Since this was done when I was starting with JavaScript, some stuff were very unpolished. Some variables were set and taken from around the Map for example, some variables are taken globally and not passed on clearly and it can be possible someone may miss where they are changed, also where daylight saving is calculated and how, so lets try to clear that out.

List of functions and variables and what they do:

ConvertDDToDMS - converts drom decimal degrees(that is just a number with a .) to Degree/Minute/Seconds(that are 3 numbers, usually 2 digits each)

addMinutes. addSeconds - adds time to a date

Julian Day - Julian Day, that is basically a big number containing how many days we have since a fixed date long time ago, its a good way to measure time used in astronomy

calcET(jday) - we give it Julian Day and we receive the Equation of Time, that is same every year more or less and it just adds some adjustments here and there happening through the year, its close to a constant more or less(leap years it changes a little, but overall close to constant)
Its used in geteot() below.

Date.prototype.getJulian - this allows us to use .getJulian on a date, that way it will return the large string of numbers mentioned above, that are used for coordination in astronomy, since its uninterupted, just the exact measurement of days since a specific fixed date few thousand of years ago its very suited to work with the day pillar in bazi and other astronomical stuffs.

geteot() - this returns the Equation of Time based on the adjusted time(globally accessed variable, so its not passed to it, it finds it without that)

adjustsolartime - this just uses the different parts explained above, equation of time and other stuff to calculate the solar time by using the offset to go to Universal Coordinates Time(remove timezone and daylight saving from the place, exaplined below) then just calculate based on that with the formulas that are everywhere for solar time.

gmtdatetime - here we have the 0 time zone and daylight saving hour, that is called universal coordinated time, time without timezones and without daylight savings is used for coordination as its same for everyone on the Earth at any given point. To get that we get the current time and we adjust it by the difference it should have from timezone and form daylight savings.(offsetdiv.value*60000) that difference is found in the functions below.

showPosition - this is made so when we give it longitude and latitude it will mark on the map specific position. That is used later on by a lot of stuff, to mark something on the map.

getTimezoneOffset - ok this is some crazy stuff going on in this one hehe, ok so what it does is that it changes the current locale(from the browser) to another locale that we receive from the coordinates on the map. It was from stackoverflow I think and I don't remember why we use Japan locale initially, I guess that was in the example then, I don't think that matters, but the important part I think is this one:
{timeZone: tz} - as that will set the timezone to the timezone choosen on the map. How that is found is explained below.
After that it creates a date without any time adjustment just base UTC time and subtract that from the other date that we have set to the locale by choosen on the map latitude and longitude, basically giving us the difference that place will have from zero timezone and daylight savings.
Since the locales have backward history that also will check if the place had Daylight Savings time on at that time and provide the offset with that in it.

datechanged - well this is the main engine, this changes when something change on the site and rewrites everything that needs to be rewritten and rechecked. since in here there isn't much going on other then the solar time, its very short function : )

adddtsandutcoffset - keep in mind some of the changes in this functions are inputing to the map info and that info is taken from the map later, so may be difficult to see they are actually adjusting what is important, other then that that obviously is working with the UTC(universal coordinated time, explained above, just timezone and DST 0) and the offset from it.

dateafteradjustment - this holds the adjusted solar time

gtcoffset = getTimezoneOffset(dateEntered, tzlookup(currentlatitude, currentlongitude))    -  So what we do here is we use date and timezone and we look at the differens that date have from UTC time, so from timezone 0 with no DST. Explained above. tzlookup is a small library that provides estimates on the timezone(that are names of places) based on latitude and longitude. Its not always perfect, so sometimes one may need to click more into a country or town so it counts. It can be made perfect if one instead of that uses online geolocation services, free ones out there are a lot, we just wanted all to be offline use friendly, so that solution seems good.


Well, this is all of it, really. The rest is some leaflet stuff, that is the library we load the map from. When we click the map it finds the timezone with tzlookup of the latitude and longitude we receive from leaflet/mapaddon, it finds the difference that hour and place have from the UTC time by changing the locales(Daylight Savings is here) and sets it on the map, then when it calculates the Solar Time it takes that offset from the map and subtract it from the date to get the UTC date without timezone or Daylight Savings.
it finds if that place at that time had daylight savings with the change of locales, and it calculates the Solar Time based on that.  How it finds it backwards(for specific year/place) well it turns out the locales have history of where and when timezones are changed. 

There may be bugs, but that could be patched on manually later on, from what we tested seemed good enough for start, so that is found by the change of locales, the result date will include it. When we subtract it from the UTC time its one of the factors that show as an "UTC Offset" meaning how much hours the local time will be different then the Universal Coordinated Time.

Stems and Branches Calculations (19.Sept.2024)
Hi!
Back to the Five Arts, very good systems so can't leave them behind!But still working on other stuff too. Long time ago I said we had way for easier calculations of the Day Pillar. Or at least with remembering much less stuff. So here we go. To understand that we need to understand just one thing and that is lets call it ON(offset number). Adding that and dividing it each year or month allows us great freedom and frexibility not only to know how many stems and branches have changes, but also to arrive at any date we need. That is how the year and months are offset from Jia Zi. Since each year is either 365 or 366 days and we know 360 is a full circle, we can just work with 5 and 6 instead for the positions. What was Jia at 1 January of the year, will become Jia + 5 for next January. What was Zi would become Zi+5 = Si Snake.

So here is how it will go for a few years.
5 stems positions will move each non leap year, 6 each leap year
1904 - leap year(All divisable by 4 years are leap years, so 1940 - leap year as its 1948, 1952 - leap year etc. to 2050)
1920 - Leap Year January 1 - Wu Wu Day
1921 January 1 - Jia Zi Day (Moves 5 position forwards from Stem 1 to Stem 6 and from branch 1 to branch 6 and we have):
1922 January 1 - Ji Si Day
1923 January 1 - Jia Xu Day (Again 5 position forward, so Ji becomes Jia again while Si becomes Xu)

Basically, at that point of time if there were no leap years, Stems would rotate Jia > Ji > Jia > Ji each 2 years, for the Day Stem. There are leap years however, and since they are easy to remember, we just add 1 position to stem and branch at them.
Then we have Jia Zi Day Again at:
1944 January 1 - Jia Zi Day
2001 January 1 - Jia Zi Day
2024 January 1 - Jia Zi Day
2081 January 1 - Jia Zi Day

The Months provide their own offset as well, so if we know every months offset we can calculate the exact Day Stem and Branch by just remembering the Jia Zi years or to be fair any year nearby.

January: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
February: 28 days and 29 in every leap year - 8 offset for Stems and 5 offset for branches
March: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
April: 30 days - 0 offset for Stems and 6 for branches
May: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
June: 30 days - 0 offset for Stems and 6 for branches
July: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
August: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
September: 30 days - 0 offset for Stems and 6 for branches
October: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
November: 30 days - 0 offset for Stems and 6 for branches
December: 31 days - 1 offset for Stems and 7 for branches
Considering all that we have 2 factors. One is offset for Stems/Branches for themonths and there is one big offset for both for the years.
Lets see how that works in practice. Someone says they are born in 1974 at 14 february. We first find the offset to 1 January 1974. For that we take the nearest January 1 at Jia Zi year and that is 1944. Then we add 5 positions for every year from then to 1974 and then we add 1 for each leap year.

So 1974-1944 = 30 years from now to then. Since 44 is dividable by 4 without remainder, while 74 is not, we start with 1 leap year at 1944. 30 / 4 and we have 8 more leap years from 44 to 74. 8 Because we count 1944 as well.
So we add 8 more positions.

With all that we can say that we have
30 * 5 + 8 for the number of stems and branches offset.
30 times 5 days for each year offset since 1944 and then we add 8 for the leap years.

That is 158.
Now we can say that we have 8 positions difference for the stem and 1 for the branch(many tricks for faster division by a number).

That suggests that 1974 will start with a january 1 being offset by 8 positions in the stems and by 1 in the branches from 1944 1 january. So if our calculations are right january 1 1974 is a Stem 9(Ren) and Branch 3(Yin)

And that is true. Then we add offset for January and we add days for february positions to arrive at their birthday.

Another example 1955 1 January.

So as we know already - 11 years from 1944 to 1955. So 11 times by offset of 5 days plus leap years offset of one day.
So we have 55 times difference plus the leap years.
And they are 3, 1944, 1948, 1952. Same rule as always, just the normal progression of powers of 4.
So now we have:
11 * 5 + 3 = 58 positions offset.
So that should be 8 difference for the Stems, and the remainder of 58 / 12, so that would be 10.
So possible pillar is Jia+8 / Zi + 10 so Ren Xu

All that suggests, all we need, to be able to say the number of any day is to remember a few things. Offsets, that is 5 for non leap years and 6 for leap year. Then to remember the offsets for the months, that is generally 7 or 8. However, if we already know how long the months are, then that part is already covered. We also need to remember the nearest Jia Zi years. Since there aren't many of them that is also easy.

That is it, enjoy!In the future I'm thinking of adding visualizations on the bazi calculator so one can see this even more clearly, but I think in this way it can make life much easier for someone that need to be able to say Day Pillar without calendar or software. : )
Astrology Calculator Part 2 (3.July.2024)
Lets now look into how to use it. In general the horary astrology partion of it is very easy to use. If we want to know what is happening with a planet, its speed, aspects, applying or seperating, fixed stars, dignities and receptions, speed and exact degrees it is at we just click the Planet. If we want to know what is a significator for a house, we just click the house. There are some parts of the material in the book that we haven't implemented yet. Triplicity and face, for example. The idea is to get used to the rest then will decide if we add that as well. And some work differently then the usual approach, that is explained in the book. The aspects is one point where people may find it suprising. Most calculators use a wide range for the aspects, meaning even 10 degrees away from it it would sitll count. In the book the idea seem to be to not go higher then 3-5 degrees, so that is how its implemented. Someday will add in the options some selector to allow wider aspects I think. Until then other calculators and ways of measuring it may provide a lot more aspects then what we will work with here. That is not a mistake, its on purpose. Although how and if its actually better only time will tell.

So this is for the horary astrology part. There are arrows in top left and right corners of the screen. Left one will lead to selection of place to align the chart with. By default it will work as if in Bulgaria. The right one will lead to degrees and relations in more table/text format, if one is more used to that.

Now, the other interesting aspect is the connection to the bazi生辰八字 astrology. This is another representation of the same ideas that can be useful to get more Images. Either from western practitioner that want to see what Month and Hour branch images they can deduce from the Rings for specific planets or for Five Arts practitioner that wants to go into more details on what is happening at that branch or stem.
My expectation, currently, is that while this is likely to work well in Month and Hour pillars, the Day and Year Pillars are just a guess of how it may need to be represented, so we can use it. So if you want to stay on the safe site, just use the Month and the Hour. While if someone wants to experiment a bit, can give the other two pillars a try as well.

So how is this suppose to be used. Here we can see the 4 rings. The outside 2 that are colored here show the Month Pillar, while the inside 2 that are black and white show the Hour Pillar. This is for clarity here, in the actual calculator all 4 are colored. The Sun at any given point of time will show the "active" pillars. Same way it does in any way of calculating it,here is how the Sun activated specific pillars from the rings: Here we can see how the Suns position has activated the Month Pillar(the outside 2 rings) and the Hour Pillar(the inside 2 rings).This is for 19 July 2024 at 12:06 with Month Pillars Xin Wei and hour pillar Ji Si
That means at this specific day and time this will be the Month and Hour Pillars.
The Hour Pillar, here we have aligned with MidHeaven instead of directly with Solar Noon. That choice makes most sense, although it may change the Hour Pillar from the Four Pillars compared to other calculators(even in our own website in the other section). Again, this is the most logical way of doing it, so we plan to stay with it.

All that being said, we also have added Day and Year Pillars. Yet that is very unclear, how would align in the best way. So its very experimental. What we are currently doing is positioning the Branches of Day and Year pillar, to the degrees of the ring of the Hour Pillar carrying that branch. Will that work in practice... No idea, time will tell. If unsure, can still use Month and Hour Pillar, that is very stable logically. The other 2 may need time and charts to fully align.

We change the Western/Zodiac Wheel view to the Five Arts view by clicking the button below the +- Hour and Day addition/subtraction buttons on the right of the screen.
The upcoming astrology calculator (3.July.2024)
The initial idea was to make a simple astrology calculator that will be easy to use. As in the current state of things, it seems for a person new to this field, getting to work with it can be very challenging. Even at the start they have to learn a large set of symbols, for planets, signs and other stuff, that can easily be made more accessible and clear, yet rarely are. For that we left the names of the Planets, the full names of the signs and everything else we thought could help a person starting to learn this.
Coming with that there were some other ideas I would have liked to see a while ago, that I incorporated now. For example, the Planets distance from each other carry meaning. The fact that the asteroid belt is right after Mars, so Mars bordering the ruins seems needed to understand its role, sometimes while Jupiter is the first planet that greeds us on the other side - all this carry meaning in my humble view. And if possible can be conveyed.

So while we can't depict the accurate distance between the Planets(as Neptune is far, far away and it will be inconvenient in this format), we did what we could to save as much of the meaning as possible. In this case, that meant depict in some way the Asteroid belt and try to position the planets close to how they would be. Of course, the Sun has other role, so its position is kinda not affected by this. Also work on the relative sizes, again can't do it fully, be that apparent or mean values, but we did what was fair for this format and yet left some of the feeling of how larger the outer planets and the Sun are(although they are even more larger in reality).

So far, so good, more then that, however, the idea was to implement some of the more complex calculations and ideas, in more easily accessible way. That means we have receptions, dignities, applying/separating, speeds and a lot of other stuff, that is used in Horary Astrology and we have implemented it based on John Frowleys book. Why based on that... well, first he seems to be viewing his material as continuation of Lillys material and that is a direction we like. Also seems to be good material and that is nice by itself as well.

There was another thing we did that can be very interesting to peoples, that incorporated the 4 Pillars of Chinese Astrology on the Chart in a way that seems very logical for 2 of them. And very random for the other 2. Time will tell, how much of these should work, but so far I find the first 2 already helpful at least a little.

Well, that is it I think. One more part of this introducing the Five Arts part of the calculator and we plan to release it all. For people interested in what we are doing and following along, for the next step one may need Frowleys Horary book, as the calculator will be tailored for that.
This is first calculator of this type and it has been more ambitious project then usual. There will likely be stuff to fix and sort out for a long time going forward, so keep in mind it will be considered a 'work in progress' for long time to come.
20.July.2024Added some fixes on the astrocalculator so when someoneclicks the planets, signs or houses it shouldn't overlap the other information, but close it instead. Seems nicer that way. 6.July.2024 Disabled Apply/Seperate text, as it can be misleading sometimes.Also added larger degree distance for the aspects, so the output is closer to what other softwares will show.
3.July.2024 Introduction to the upcoming calculator.
24.June.2024 Reworking the home page, so its more friendly and easier to read.
23.June.2024 Renewed announcement for the new plan ahead together with the last planned Five Arts calculator for now and setting initial framework for the coming horary astrology calculator.
13.May.2024 Announcement about site change is added on the home page(here).
20.April.2024 Removed some of the less known calculations, like the alternative day and year calculations in flying star, or the relations of stars to palace in 8 mansions. Seems good idea, as the initial idea of the site was always to carry the base information that is public domain, that, even though in the open, seemed to go outside of what we aimed to cover.
3.April.2024 Added relations of Wondering Stars to their Palaces in Eight Mansions calculator. On the page the sources are listed. Very nice methodology, in our view.
24.February.2024 Added more functionality in 8 mansions calculator(we can select House map now as well), including some 9 Star Ki calculations. Added description of alternative formulas on Home page(here below). Also added initial steps for San Yuan Da Gua 三元大卦 3d Calculator, though more info is likely needed there.
17.February.2024 Added Fiery Bazi Part 2 on home page
28.January.2023 Added change log. : )
28.January.2023 Added Luck Pillar representation next to the extra 2 pillars. It will change if we select luck pillar from below(clicking the year range or the LPs). It will also try to calculate it based on the second selector date to the first one and LP ranges. So the suggested approach is choose date of birth in first selector. Added dates you are interested in in second one and extra 2 pillars will show with attempt to show the current LP as well.
Chapters:

Site expansion


(24.June.2024)
The current idea is to make the site a place for different calculators and calendars for traditions and systems from all over the world, current or ancient. So we will make a section for the Five Arts systems and add our last calculator from them as well, it was made for android, but we have repurposed it to work for the website as well.
Together with that, slowly we plan to start adding calculators from other systems. When there are at least 3 belonging in their own section(for example William Lillys work, where next one may also be suited for) we will open another subsection. This seems the best solution, as in this way wherever we go next after this branch of astrology can also be included in what we do with the site.
So for now we will add the last Five Arts calculator from before and the initial stuff needed to run the first horary astrology calculator when its ready in the new section - "Astronomical Divination Systems".

The name may need some improvement, but seems the best choice for now. While there are astronomical calculations for the Five Arts, there are much less then in horary astrology for example. And as the new direction is heavily focused on that and there are vast amount of systems both current and ancient that use the same base(Planets, stars and how they are seen from Earth) makes sense to call it something similar to it.

The new Date Selection calculator, was initially planned to be implementation of https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ba_Zi/Date_Selection and we have stayed close to it for a lot of how it calculates, although some parts are added by us(like the rating on the hours, using purely bazi relations combinations/clash etc.) and some is from other open sources in the net.The comments are from our experience how different stuff show in some cases for the hours. Don't take it too seriously, while it may be better then nothing in some cases, its very small part of the factors that are looked before choosing a date, as far as I have noticed so far. So its more for fun and if one just need easy choice with stuff that doesn't matter much.
Some parts were removed, as they didn't work well mostly around remembering settings and personalization. But enough seems to work fine even like this, to be a good idea to release for the peoples.

Alternative Formulas


(24.Feb.2024)
Some of the formulas we use, are compressed a little, sometimes. Espesially ones from tables. Its same result, or it should be same, but this is a lot easier to calculate and shorter. Will post some of them here, as I think if people are doing it without using calculators, having shorter formulas can help much, sometimes.
There is more to some of this. Adjustment for Chou months for example or for the 5 in 9 star ki, so this is just the alternative part in calculations shown.
All this is kept in its specific range we won't write it every time. But for example for 9 star ki numbers, all is always in range of 9, if more then 9 then 9 is subtracted. For branches 12 etc. Year is in 4 digits format, so current one would be 2024.
  • Four Pillars/Bazi
  • yearstem = year%10-3
  • yearbranch = year %12-3
  • monthbranch = solarmonth+2
  • monthstem = ((yearstem % 5) * 2 )+ solarmonth
  • hourstem = hourbranch + (((daystem % 5) *2) -2 )
  • Nine Star Ki
  • First number(male):
    selfguanumber = 7- (year % 9)
  • First number(female):
    selfguanumber = (year % 9)+4
  • Second number:
    secondnumber = 2-(selfguanumber*6)-monthbranch
  • Third number:
    thirdnumber = selfguanumber+5-secondnumber
We believe this can be helpful for practitioners that want to be independent of calculators or calendars and with some effort all can be done without even paper. Although formulas have to be memorized. To be continue, possibly... : ) }
Site expansion24.June.2024

Fiery Bazi Part 2(Click to see)17.February.2024

Fiery Bazi (Click to see)10.November.2023

Line position meaning and Images(Click to see)3.July.2023

Our Solar Time Scripts release...(Click to see)18.February.2023

Fiery Bazi


(16.Feb.2024)

Fiery Bazi Part 2

In the second step of our humble system, we add a small change in how branches polarity is viewed in practice. While that may make some practitioners uncomfortable, as we change the view to parts of the calendar behind it all, I think if they give it a chance they will see the change is a very well calculated and relatively small matter, so it doesn't mess up anything already there much and it adds not only more, but it also may allow the practice to be more fun and healthier for the practitioners. And that for us is the most important point, how to be more healthy, balanced and happy when practicing the system.

The main idea was to find a missing "middle" state in the branches polarities. That suggests it had to have been there all along, so we couldn't "invent" it. It had to be overlooked. That makes sense, the calendar have been there for a long time, so I get why people were hesitant to look for changes there. But if we want the practitioners to be able to practice in a more balanced and healthy way, we view that is next step in it.

So what do we change and why... The usual approach goes like this as we know:
Yin - Tiger - Yang Branch
Mao - Rabbit - Yin Branch
Chen - Dragon - Yang Branch
Si - Snake - Yin Branch
Wu - Horse - Yang Branch
Wei - Goat - Yin Branch
Shen - Monkey - Yang Branch
You - Rooster - Yin Branch
Xu - Dog - Yang Branch
Hai - Pig - Yin Branch
Zi - Rat - Yang Branch
Chou - Ox - Yin Branch


What we attempt to do is to add instead of Yin/Yang polarity that we have in the Stems, we will add Heaven(Yang) - Man(Dao) - Earth(Yin) polarity for the branches. Their hidden stems remain the same, so all done in practice with that stays the same.
Yet one may worry that in this way Pillars doesn't carry the same polarity. They may have Yin Stem with Yang Branch or Yang Stem with Dao Branch etc.
And in our humble view, that fits very well to reality, where people and matters may have receiving/nourishing quality on the surface, yet be dynamic and active deep within. Or balanced deep within and dynamic and active on the surface. Something we can never have if we always take the whole pillar polarity for stem and branch.
And while that may seemingly create contradiction, we already know even in the more known approach we can have branch polarity with different hidden stems polarity(Si, Hai etc.) so makes sense to be able to have it the other way around as well.
One may also wonder - what do we do with all techniques that are based on branch polairty?Well, if we look carefully around we may see there aren't many of those. The ones that are, I assume may be handled in 2 ways.
1. They may not work very well, so can be abandoned for something else.
2. The ones that do work, can just be said they use the stem polarity. So Chen Dragon for example, will always carry Yang Stem, as usual, so instead of saying "we use branch polarity" we say "we use the stem polarity of that branch".
Seems like a clever switcharoo, but again - we attempt to preserve the state of balance for the practitioner, so its not random at all. So then we have this:
Yin, Si, Shen, Hai - Yang Branches, Seeking their balance in an dynamic way
Mao, Wu, You, Zi - Dao Branches, in balance, not moving initially
Chen, Wei, Xu, Chou - Yin Branches, waiting to receive, in their usual state, also waiting to receive their middle component, so again searching for balance. There are more then this states, but that is already viewed in some details in bazi reading styles out there.

And that is all there is. : )
I think if we give it a chance, we will see it doesn't take away anything working practically, yet adds a whole another layer on top of it that can be observed. And that is how Yang and Yin branches will be searching for their Dao Branch, so for balance, basically.
Making the whole chart a matter of balance. We know what parts of the chart the person is stable in and the other parts are attempting to "find" them.
Yang branches by active search, Yin branches by being open to receive it and awaiting it.
So then in practice, lets say we has:
DM
X Jia X X
X X SiYou
Usually we can say communication(Si - output) is important for the person.
We can also say, now, that Si(that communication) is seeking its You, as that is its balance. And that You is authority(Officer) in far away places and in early years of their life(Year Pillar).
So now, they communicate, seeking to gain authority related to far away places, or events in their early years.
Basically, one more level of "movement" and staying still and that is all there is.


So what happens with all the other stuff, combinations, clashes, temperature adjustment and all else?
Well, all still there, one still reads charts with all that, this is just a small added layer of more Images that in our humble perspective will be beneficial for the practitioner reading.

Fiery Bazi


(10.Nov.2023)
Fiery Bazi
Through the years I have develop my own style of looking at bazi. While the essence is still the same, there are some additions, some readjustments and changes... I will try to present the idea of one of the first base steps of it here.

If we look at current, popular bazi reading styles, we can see a few different focus places people look. Some will look at strength of DM. How strong the images of the personality of the person is. Others will look at grouping. What are the strongest Images of the more prelevent groups in the chart. Some will look at interactions. Images of the strongest interactions in the chart, and this approach we also will take in some cases(work done or working god etc). Finally, some look at where the Wealth is and how the person obtains it.

While all of them can do interesting work in different parts of life, what I was personally more interested in was other aspects of life specifically where one is most useful to the whole and themselves, where they can contribute the most. And for that we will use the 5 shens of TCM Images on top of the elements of stems and branches. And we will look at where the Fire is. : )
"Why?!"A curious reader may ask."If all is suppose to be in balance, why look at the fire?!"

Well... There is a movement in my humble understanding. It goes deep within(Water) for renewel and connection to the whole. When its that deep its outside influence is heavily diminished. And with time it starts to move out(Wood) spreading its influence until it reaches the peak of what it bring to the process(Fire). Then it contracts again(Metal) and it goes for renewel again(Water) and on, and on...

Similar to someone going to take water for their home in times of old. They go outside their house where they are with the people they love and they travel to the Source of it all, lets say a well in nearby village. They fill their vessel from the water(Water phase). Then start going back bringing the new fresh water home(Wood). Then they go home and share it with everyone(Fire). Then they are at peace in Earth until its time to go again for fresh water.

But their opening to the group of people in their own home, happens after renewel and the path home have been walked, so what they can provide back happens at Fire. Having that water all for themselves is useless, so sharing it and how best to do it is what each chart can show. And in most cases that will be by looking where the Fire is, in my humble experience.

That being said, we should clarify that to use this, one may still need to know all or at least most other styles. Interactions and rules there are very valid, this is just suppose to provide 1 more layer of Images and connections, from the 5 shens and to provide where to look at and why look at it.

So what are the 5 shens. Link to interesting material here:

https://giovanni-maciocia.com/shen-and-hun-psyche-in-chinese-medicine/
This is good starting point, then can just check around the net. While they are viewed somewhat differently in martial arts then in TCM, we will advice focusing on TCM perspective first, then with time can see they aren't that different.

Lets go into some Images we will use for it:

Shen(Fire) - awareness, clarity, highest point someones movement can make(highest frequency etc).
 Hun(Wood) - dreams, intuition, movement in that awareness
 Po(Metal) - Connection to the Earth and nature, the borrowed component, that we need to be here. May seem sad, or looking at death - reason for that is as the Earth may have problems, as we all know now.
 Zhen(Water) - drive, perpetual movement that brings life and sustains it, "will" in the sense of will to live, lowest point of the cycle, one can receive from it
 Yi(Earth) - thinking, thoughts,


We look at the Fire and use the other Shens to understand what happens to it. So where the person has clarity, what is his highest degree of contribution to the whole and to themselve, and how to get there(as fire will in some cases need support). If someone doesn't have Fire in their initial chart, then understanding the movement that is there instead, becomes the focus, together with the period in their life(LP, AP) when that Fire and clarity will be present, but that may be out of the scope of this initial steps view.

Yi as thinking, has another level to it. That is what we call Tombs/Storages.
Wei - Storage of Wood.
Xu - Storage of Fire.
Chou - Storage of Metal.
Chen - Storage of Water and Earth.
So now each of these 4, is not only thinking, but its thinking about what it contains. That is based on Images, so we look at the 10 gods/shens of each elements.

Lets say we have Wood DM. Then Wood is their Sibling, Earth is their Wealth/Asset etc.

So Wei in their chart, suggest they are thinking about value/wealth. As we have Yi from Earth coming together with Wei Goat being Earth. And then we have the Wood within, carrying Images of Sibling element and that also carry Images of people. So value coming from people(like manager etc.)

Then we can say - Wei carry Images of a structure. As something containing people looks like organization or structure of some kind. If in the month, often may be Government related etc.
And for the persons processes, that is thinking about people, like many in connection to that type of organizations will have to do and their value, so looking for that specifically.

Lets look at some theoretical cases of how to use that.

DM
X Bing X X
X X Chou X


So we have the person bringing their highest point of connection to the whole in their own personality. Nearby all around them they see structure(Chou) containing Metal/Asset.
So they may be thinking at this point in way that contains and revolves around expression and creativity containig wealth. How to express value.

Now, lets say we have this:

X Bing Xin X
X Wu Chou X

Bing combining with Xin , suggests Bing wants it. So now we have Bing as personality wanting to obtain something from the world around them. That something carry Images of something very basic related to life, basic human needs, physical body and/or to Metal.Looking at it from Natures perspective, we have Earth containg Metal that comes in Stem from in more refined way.

Then DM wants to take that. May be jewelry, tool, or any product coming from the Earth.

Yet when we add the 5 shens, Chou becomes thinking about Wealth. Thinking is from Yi from the 5 shens and Chou being Earth and Wealth from the Metal within and its 10 god/shen Image. So we have something as a product of thinking about wealth. It comes in the open where all can see it and DM tries to obtain it.
However, then we have another level Wu deep within them is still part of the 5 shens as Fire. So within them there is another, deeper form of clarity. As soon as they get near the Wealth they want, the Images coming from Chou muddle the clarity in the inner Wu and is pushed away. As seen as too cold. That process we can follow in the person itself in most cases. They will think of 'wealth' what is valuable. They will reach a product in Xin. Try to obtain it in Bing<>Xin. Then push it away, as they will dispise the thinking process leading to it as too cold in Wu<>Chou.

To be continue if approperiate...

Line position meaning and Images


(13.July.2023)

Its interesting to try to use different systems together at times.In Astrology, channeling was used many years ago for the 360 symbols for the degrees, we do use channeling to fill some parts of the Five Arts systems as well. Of course, the base have to be there, so its also based on experience.


We will post some of the Images of lines we use. There is more to it, there are reasons and ideas connected to them that is one approach to figuring out right and wrong, in the sense of balance and flow. But that is more complex as well even with the second step. Anyway that part is connected to a technique used by a big school out there, so if we see them using it in the open we will look into releasing that as well. For now good step is just the initial images. There is also different amount of Images where we use Earth/Earth/Man/Man... etc instead. But they are very few and since in practice I'm using the ones below as key part in one of our more useful Settings, this is the important part, although not all yet.

Its made by experience, base is from channeling and aligned with just observing Images. : ) All lines carry also the 'out of place' meaning, that we haven't yet gotten to posting, more on that some other time, possible. Its not bad, however, its with specific purpose, as all is.

Line 1 - Space.what we step on, where the roots are, ground, the earth below car garages of congrete and stuff. The background, things happen on. In reading a letter it can be paper. In eating it would be food. In life it would be mechanical activities one does every day or annually. Routine. The things one does to stay alive and in shape, without thinking about them much.
Line 2 - Human.the community of people, variaty, merging and going apart, life(organical and not only) home, homie,fireplace, gathering around something, closeness(human and just closeness).
Can show enclosed spaces like room, or house, or car, as its between heaven and earth. Strongly here, I am presence in the nearby places etc. So relaxation, but not as much as it carries life ideas as well(activity, again depends yin or yang line I guess).
In spiritual systems can show the Deva of a place in its effect, while line 3 would show in presence.
Would be the written words if we look at letter.
Would be the human being that is eating and his process of doing it.
Line 3 - Time.the ideas and abstract concepts related to what is happening. If we look at letter will be the meaning the reader is seeing in it. Would be the original Qi and sustains derived from the food.
In orchestra while the room and instruments can be line 1, people line 2, the music can be line 3(intangible and moving through time).
Very connected to time in the sense of 'plans at home', so the view of the person to their family and their own personally 'future'. Hope. Plans.
Whole upper trigram is the environment this(lines 1-3) is happening at.
Line 4 - Larger, usually open ended encompassing space where the first 3 lines are in. Can show floor on the second floor(the concrete etc.) Floor of an escalator, or a swimming pool the surace of the water(floor above the floor).
Also whole humanity support, so firefigthers, police departments, anything that is giving the support for humanity on a outside perspective(when out of home).
Streets outside as well, stores etc.
Line 5 - Leader. Cross section of roads. Someone carring the burden for others(firefighter in the car, police regulating force etc.)
Meeting point of roads or ideas.Hub. Someone taking the blame(as it comes with responsibility and see from a far). Carring the ideas from above to below. Mailservice. Weather service etc.Responsible(can be betrayal or a good leader and organizer of flow).
Line 6 - All outside of the situation, things we don't know are part of the question, thoughts and emotions, outsiders, beggers and hermits, the state ones are if/when they carry the light or are just happy and in the moment, clouds and Images.

Our Solar Time Scripts release...


(18.February.2023)

 Its time to release some stuff as open source, for the community. In my humble view there are 2 parst that are needed the most. Automated daylight saving and Solar Time scripts, and some astronomy clarification.
We will release the Solar Time and Daylight Savings scripts. They can be better, there may be bugs and problems, but I think in the long run they have good parts making them better choice even with people already having Solar Calculations.

My code is messy. Comments are for my own use, stuff is intertwined and difficult to follow... I have done all I can do make this specific part clear, with useful comments and optimized in the attached file. Can see the messy version in the new Flying Star Beta Calculator, there its used together with the 4 Pillars.The rest is technical informatino for people planning to use them in their sites or software.
Important functions in the code:

map.on('click', function(e)
Geographical information is added to the map and variables.


function datechanged()
With new date it will adjust it to the information frmo the map then convert it to the final date.

The converted date is always hold in the variable dateafteradjustment.


I think in the Five Arts community people, sometimes avoid mentioning sources... And that is silly, reviewing our sources is a strength, not a weakness. In this case we are using:

tz.js
Now there seems to be many alternatives. Back when I wrote it we had this:
https://github.com/darkskyapp/tz-lookup-oss/

This takes latitude and longitude and it shows the timezone name and the numbers we convert to minutes offset from GMT 0.
Basically from time withut timezone and daylight saving.
The great and awesome thing is that it works back in time. So if a country removed daylight saving adjustment in specific year then set it again later, this will adjust to that. And that is the best part of the script as this is what people usually don't know for their own countries and happens a lot.

What I don't know is if that is in the tz.js file or it takes it by zone name from the browser. In first case it may need to be updated, in the link it says how. We havent done it, so far, so can't comment on it. But it was working well for what we used it.

In second case all is good, should work by itself moving forward. Yet in first one using alternative library for this step or updating this my be wise, as EU is going thruogh big changes in the way it works with daylight savings so for days in the last few years it may not handle it perfectly.


Control.Geocoder.js

https://github.com/perliedman/leaflet-control-geocoder
This finds the place by the name in the search and gives latitude and longitude. Currently, it uses google services. This is the only part of the process we couldn't make offline back then. There are ways, just couldn't do it then and ahven't tried since. There are many alternatives, esri was one of them.


https://getbootstrap.com/
This is the good old bootstrap. For style etc.


We are using leaflet for the map. Much of the code is related to the map, so if one needs to improve stuff leaflet documentation is the place to check:
https://leafletjs.com/


jquery, popper, promise all js libraries for some of the other stuff used.

License. This is open source and free, use it for whatever you want. Can use it by itself, then input it in another calculator after conversation, or make an app out of it. We are fine with it.
Some great improvements can be made to it if one has resources for it. If someone does that, we will appreciate to keep it open source, lets try to build a better community here, we have what we need for it.

Some notes:
Can run offline, currently only the geocoder we haven't found offilen alternative(uses google services, right now).
Needs offline tiles, long story there.

Bounderies of countries aren't exact. That saves a lot of space. Can use exact ones, up to what its used for. Info in the tz page.

There are likely bugs. Its complex code and it uses many libraries. Its very segmented, however, if a library is buggy just replace with alternative doing the same. In general we are happy with the tests we made, but its big projects and there is so much 2 people can do on something like that.

This won't work on Safari. It can be fixed if date selector is changed.

Anyway, I believe this can be helpful for big and small players in the community. Feel free to use and enjoy! : )

Download from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqad5752z2uxvzp/BrightHallOpenSourceScripts1.tar.gz?dl=1

Edit 1(18Feb2023): Images showing the map are called 'tiles'. They are loaded from tile servers. Currently is set to open street maps, but for servers with heavy load(many users) they may cut the traffic. If that happens there are many alternatives, from hosting ones own tile server using open sources maps, to using paid or free tile server providers.

Edit 2(6march2023): Did this some years ago so didn't remember all functions. I looked into it. Good news is the UTC offset(the actual minute difference frmo GMT 0 happens from the browsers. So dont have to worry about updating it should update with the browsers version when country changes the way it handles daylight changing again.
The code in XKFX calculator was buggy, however. The last 2 are experimental versions as it says, so bugs can be expected. I removed solar adjustment there for now. Just use the .html provided with the package to download on here, it has all one should need,


  • Site is made using:
  • Django (djangoproject.com)
  • Bootstrap. (getbootstrap.com)
  • shepherd.js (shepherd js), intro.js(intro.js) and propeller.js(propeller.js)
  • Inkscape (inkscape.org)
  • Also sweetalert, jquery, overlib, toggle, bootstrap-cookie alert.
  • SVG of the clouds in the background is from here.
  • We are using heavy javascript and python code through ajax, so any script blockers will disable half of the functionality and probably more. If you want to use the site, disable script blockers for here. Recommended browsers are last versions of Firefox and Chrome.
    IE, other browsers, or very, very old versions of these may disable parts of the functionality as well.
  • We switched the astronomy calculation engine to py ephem as all tests we did show its much more accurate then what we were using before.
  • Sun calculations for all offline calculators are made using Orb.JS from here. Big thanks to the author for the help in the calculations!
  • Yi Globe 3D calculator is powered by Babylon JS framework and Blender.
  • Bibliography.
  • Date Selection calculator is based on https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ba_Zi/Date_Selection and the other calculators usually have explanation of sources at the bottom of the page itself.