Skyscript Astrology Forum

Martin Gansten wrote:Might this help?
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph. ... c379890186
(I suspect SS means S?ryasiddh?nta, an important astronomical work in Sanskrit.)

It helps a lot, thanks Martin!


Jo?o Ventura
http://www.flatangle.com/

Hi Jo?o

Thanks for your comments on Linux etc, I use a couple of old HP/Compaq laptops too, running Lubuntu. These machines seem to go on and on, very robust.

Cross platform working is critical now, and this is a major problem for most commercial astrological software which was written in the days of Windows hegemony. I think most of the vendors are going to struggle to catch up with a world where there are a variety of OS's such as Linux, Android, Apple and a variety of devices - desktop, phone, tablet, watch(?).

I don't see a Windows dominated world coming back.

Running software in a browser, such as you are doing, is one of the obvious solutions. There is one commercial supplier called Astroapp doing this.

I would prefer an open source solution to these issues, perhaps with a cross platform astrological program developed by the community. It would be really exciting to bring together astrologers and programmers in this way to create a piece of community led astrological software that is accessible and high quality built around FOSS standards.

Ed

astralwanderer wrote:Cross platform working is critical now, and this is a major problem for most commercial astrological software which was written in the days of Windows hegemony. I think most of the vendors are going to struggle to catch up with a world where there are a variety of OS's such as Linux, Android, Apple and a variety of devices - desktop, phone, tablet, watch(?).

I don't see a Windows dominated world coming back.

I don't think windows is coming back either, but I'm not naive enough to believe that they can't catch up. Esoteric Technologies has a whole team of programmers (roughly 12 I think) and I'm pretty sure that they are working around the clock on these issues trying to update legacy code. I have already made the transition to cross platform development and the new high definition 3D vector capabilities (SVG is 2D) and it is only a matter of time before my code is completely able to run on Android, Mac OSX, and iOS natively because the whole field is going in that direction to where you can just set your directories on paserver to compile on your selected platforms. TerraChron (developed in a cross platform library) represents a step in that direction, but so far I have limited it to windows. As soon as I have a dylib for the Swiss Ephemeris compiled for 2.0 (I already have 1.78 ) then TerraChron could have been compiled as a native MacOS and distributed as a dmg file. I think the only thing stopping the big astro companies from doing this is the profitability margin (if anything) so don't get too proud Jo?o - it can lead to a fall and you'd be finished before you even got started. I learned the hard way not to underestimate these companies and barely survived. Lets hope that their history for lack of innovation prevails (the reason why I was forced to program the Hellenistic methods myself from Project Hindsight in the first place after asking these companies several times back in the 90's).

As for the graphics of 90's style astro programs being of poorer quality - this has to do with the windows GDI using raster graphics (pixelated) which cannot easily be fixed on screen and instead requires higher resolution and typically has scaling problems if you use stretch mode in TImage, etc... I've already switched to vectors similar to SVG's to fix this problem in the next version of Delphic Oracle.

I expect to see all sorts of astrological software to come out cross platform in the near future.

astralwanderer wrote:I would prefer an open source solution to these issues, perhaps with a cross platform astrological program developed by the community. It would be really exciting to bring together astrologers and programmers in this way to create a piece of community led astrological software that is accessible and high quality built around FOSS standards.

Hi Ed,

the problem with open-source is that sometimes we just don't have enough developers. For instance we would need about 40 programmers to contribute 1h per week to match a programmer working 8h/day - assuming that they would know the source code entirely.

Most open source projects only have one or two developers, therefore it is really hard to keep up, and most of the times the quality and design gets poorer. For instance, compare the output of pyMorinus (a known open source software) with the output of Charts:
.

To reach the design of my charts, I had to dedicate some 1,5 months working full time. This would be really hard for open-source developers to replicate. Unfortunately, our community is small and we don't have that number of developers.

Personally, I would enjoy to reach a stable solution where I could open source more of my astrology code, and still make a living out of this. But for now, what I can do is share some knowledge, like the simpler formulas for Primary Directions that I've published at http://blog.flatangle.com/.

But my wish would be to go the open-source route, maybe some day!

zoidsoft wrote:I think the only thing stopping the big astro companies from doing this is the profitability margin (if anything) so don't get too proud Jo?o - it can lead to a fall and you'd be finished before you even got started.

Hi Curtis,

I get what you are saying! That is why I am not trying to compete directly with any established software company or developer.

For instance, I do not aim to compete with Solar Fire: their software tries to be a little bit of everything to everyone, but is not great at anything in particular. For instance, Martin Gansten in his Primary Directions book even points out that SF has some errors regarding its PDs module. I wonder how many astrologers failed predictions because of it..

Also, I am not competing with your Delphic Oracle. Your software is specific for astrology since Hellenistic to Traditional and you have to support many features that I don't use, such as time lords, etc.

In my personal case, I made a clear differentiation decision (http://blog.flatangle.com/2014/why-differentiate/) to target only Traditional Astrologers which appreciate well designed graphics and minimalist interfaces.

Contrary to the "big players", I'm not trying to be good enough to all possible astrologers, but the "best" (regarding my goals, of course) to a really specific niche. I'm a traditionalist, so it is only natural for me to support the techniques that I/we use in traditional astrology. Also, I do really enjoy well thought graphics and interfaces, that is why I do a lot of sketches and take too much time on small details. Finally, I'm a minimalist and strong believer of "less is more". My software is just my own view of what I think Traditional Astrology software should be.. Some will agree, some don't!


Thanks,
Jo?o Ventura

Hello everyone,

I just made a small update to Charts: It now includes a Settings tab which allows users to select the House System.

Current house systems are:
- Alcabitus
- Regiomontanus
- Placidus
- Koch
- Porphyrius
- Campanus
- Equal
- Vehlow Equal
- Meridian
- Azimuthal
- Polich Page

You can find Charts at http://apps.flatangle.com/Charts/.


Follow Flat Angle on Facebook!

Now you can also receive news about Flat Angle on Facebook. Do "Like" on my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/flatangle) to receive news about Flat Angle on your Facebook feed. You can also use Facebook for questions or suggestions!


Enjoy and share,
Jo?o Ventura (http://www.flatangle.com/)

Nice! Thank you, that's lovely.

This is really nice!

I have a few questions:

1. Is there any way that you could add whole sign houses as an option? This is one of the main traditional systems of house division.

2. Could you add an option to export the chart images as PDF files?

3. Do you plan to integrate an atlas of some sort eventually? Or would that be too much of a hassle given all of the complications surrounding that?

Hi Chris,

my answers to your questions below:

Chris Brennan wrote:1. Is there any way that you could add whole sign houses as an option? This is one of the main traditional systems of house division.

I'm not completely familiar with it, but it seems that "whole sign houses" implies slight changes to the chart's graphics. For instance, House 1 is not the Ascendant, and the Asc/MC are new objects than need to be "inserted" in the chart.

However, I may try to implement it! I've also received some emails and Facebook messages suggesting to implement it. Could you post here an image or hyperlink to a "whole sign houses" chart which you would consider to be graphically correct? If you could also comment the major differences, that would be great!

Chris Brennan wrote:2. Could you add an option to export the chart images as PDF files?

Currently, there are two solutions for exporting a chart to PDF, and one is even quite elegant! Both are possible because I'm using standard web technologies.. I'll write an article explaining both approaches on Friday.

Chris Brennan wrote:3. Do you plan to integrate an atlas of some sort eventually? Or would that be too much of a hassle given all of the complications surrounding that?

Yes, an Atlas is in my plans.


Thanks,
Jo?o Ventura (http://www.flatangle.com/)

jventura wrote: I'm not completely familiar with it, but it seems that "whole sign houses" implies slight changes to the chart's graphics. For instance, House 1 is not the Ascendant, and the Asc/MC are new objects than need to be "inserted" in the chart.

However, I may try to implement it! I've also received some emails and Facebook messages suggesting to implement it. Could you post here an image or hyperlink to a "whole sign houses" chart which you would consider to be graphically correct? If you could also comment the major differences, that would be great!

Yes, that is correct. In the approach I prefer, the cusp of the rising sign always stays fixed on the horizontal axis, and then the degree of the Ascendant moves and can be earlier or later within the rising sign itself. Similarly, the MC moves around the top part of the chart, and can fall in any of the houses in that hemisphere. So, basically you would have to make it so that the cusp of the rising sign was always a fixed point, and then the degree of the Asc and MC would move around like sensitive points in the chart, sort of like the Part of Fortune.

I just emailed you a few example charts to show you how a chart that uses whole sign houses is typically supposed to look. If you want any additional background information on whole sign houses then here is an article I wrote on it a few years ago:

http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2007 ... gn-houses/

Hi there - the question of the differentiation of the ascendant and first house cusp (and MC and tenth house cusp) in software is an interesting one. I've noticed that some programs fail to do this and it causes problems with display and other calculations such as progressions and directions. So for example, instead of progressing or directing the ascendant, the calculation routine progresses the first house cusp as if it were the ascendant.

Jo?o - in your app you might want to look at this question if you implement whole sign houses (which would be a great addition by the way). For example, I use meridian houses, and I notice that your app correctly calculates the first house cusp in this system (the equatorial ascendant) but doesn't display the ascendant for the latitude of the place. The first house cusp and ascendant are very unlikely to coincide using the meridian system.

Similarly, with equal house in your app, the first house cusp=ascendant and this is shown correctly, but the MC is omitted.

If you implement Morinus at some time, the tenth house cusp and first house cusp are extremely unlikely to coincide with either the MC or ascendant respectively.

I don't know how you are calculating MC and ASC and the first and tenth house cusps but it might be worth reviewing your code if the assumption is made that the ascendant=first house cusp and MC=tenth house cusp. There are number of house systems where this assumption is not true.

By the way, to have a choice of house systems in your app is an excellent development.

All the best. Ed

Chris Brennan wrote: I just emailed you a few example charts to show you how a chart that uses whole sign houses is typically supposed to look. If you want any additional background information on whole sign houses then here is an article I wrote on it a few years ago:

http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2007 ... gn-houses/

Hi Chris,

thanks for the chart examples and for your article! I was unaware that some house systems separated the Asc/MC from the 1st/10th house cusps. My house system of preference is Alcabitius, which does not have such differentiation, and other house systems such as Regiomontanus or Placidus do not have it as well.

My software currently makes that assumption, therefore it may take a while before I can implement it correctly, but I will definitely do it!

astralwanderer wrote:I don't know how you are calculating MC and ASC and the first and tenth house cusps but it might be worth reviewing your code if the assumption is made that the ascendant=first house cusp and MC=tenth house cusp. There are number of house systems where this assumption is not true.

Hi again Ed,

yes, my software currently assumes that Asc=House1 and MC=House10. I'll be doing some more updates to the app in the next few weeks, but I'll "rethink" my code to break that assumption.

By the way, could any of you, Ed or Chris, provide a link or a small list of the most used house systems that you are aware of for which that assumption of houses1/10 = Asc/MC is not true? Whole sign houses and Equal houses seem to fail for that assumption, are there any more?


Thanks,
Jo?o Ventura (http://www.flatangle.com/)

Hi Jo?o - thanks for your reply. To answer your request:

By the way, could any of you, Ed or Chris, provide a link or a small list of the most used house systems that you are aware of for which that assumption of houses1/10 = Asc/MC is not true? Whole sign houses and Equal houses seem to fail for that assumption, are there any more?

The information is best set out in table and I don't seem to be able to edit html code in this reply so can't create a <table>. I will try and send you a personal message with the information.

Ed