FVR

Formant Visualization and Remeasurement

(pronounced [fivɹ̩])

Description

Plotmish is a python-based formant remeasurement tool. It can be used to correct errors made by automatic formant measurements programs and to annotate the changes.

Plotmish graphically displays vowels based on the first two formant values for easy identification of outliers. Outliers can then be remeasured automatically based on either time or maximum formant values or remeasured manually in Praat.

Plotmish also offers several filtering and vowel identification options that are outlined below.

Author and Acknowledgments

Author Misha Schwartz

Thanks to Morgan Sonderegger and everyone at MLML

Code for zoomIn.Praat was adapted from PlotnikButton.praat by Ingrid Rosenfelder (available with the Plotnik 10.3 release)

The sendpraat binaries are from Paul Boersma

The first version of this software was (somewhat narcissistically) called Plotmish (though this one is much better).

Plotmish is inspired by Plotnik

Requirements

Python (preferably version 2.7)

wxPython

Praat

numpy

Getting started

###On the command line or terminal:

cd to FVR/
python FVR.py

###Open files:

FVR requires a csv or txt file containing the vowel information AND a wav file that corresponds with the info file (corresponding txt/csv files should contain the name of the wav file ie. ABC_info.txt and ABC.wav)

• Open files: File > Open... You will be prompted to choose a directory containing the csv/txt files and another containing the wav files (FVR will match them automatically)
• Open recent files: File > Open Most Recent

####Troubleshooting file opening:

If FVR isn't opening your files...

• check your corresponding wav files and txt/csv files are named properly (see above)
• check the info reader is configured for your txt/csv files File > Configure Info Reader This will open up a window where you can describe your txt/csv files (hover over each input box for hints on what values they take)
• IF YOUR FILE IS A FORMANT.TXT FILE FROM FAVE-EXTRACT:
  • FVR cannot read these files directly but can convert them easily
  • Go to File > Configure FAVE output
  • Follow the prompts

####Recommended FAVE-extract settings:

If you are using FAVE-extract to measure your vowels the following settings are recommended:

speechSoftware=praat
outputFormat=text
formantPredictionMethod=mahalanobis
candidates=T

A description of these settings can be found on the FAVE site or in the FAVE-extract ReadMe.

###Displaying Vowels

The bottom of the main FVR window displays two phonetic alphabets (CMU and another one) as buttons:

• Click any of the buttons to show the vowels with the corresponding label on the plot (you can toggle them off and on)
• The larger buttons on top will toggle all of the smaller buttons below them
• The middle button has two settings union (U) and intersect (∩): this
• Will either display the union or intersect of the set of pressed vowel buttons on either side

###Filtering Vowels

At the bottom right of the main FVR window you can set filter options:

• Filter by word: select a word from the dropdown list
• Filter by duration: set a minimum and maximum duration (in ms) to display
• When you have finished setting filter values press the FILTER button to filter out the vowels which do not correspond to the filter values
• You can toggle the filter by pressing the FILTER button again.

###Remeasuring

To remeasure a vowel, select the remeasurement mode (see below) and click the vowel on the plot. Each mode does the following

• PRAAT:

  • Opens up Praat.app when a vowel is clicked
  • To remeasure the vowel place the red line at the desired position in the vowel and select Query > Log 1 (or F12)
  • This will draw a white box to the plot corresponding to the new measurement

• FORMANTS:

  • displays alternate measurements for the selected vowel depending on the maximum formant setting when the vowel was measured

• % OF DURATION:

  • displays alternate measurements for the selected vowel taken at a different point in the vowel's duration (ex. at 20%, 50% etc.)

The original vowel measurement will appear on the plot at a black box and the alternate measurements will appear as a white box. Select one by clicking or keep the original measurement by hitting the CANCEL button.

###ToolBar buttons

The toolbar buttons are located at the top of the main FVR window:

PLAY

• When on (green), you can left click a vowel on the plot to hear it

STANDARD DEVIATION:

• Show or hide an ellipse which shows 1,2 or 3 standard deviations from the mean for all vowels on the plot

ZOOM

• Clicking this button enables zooming mode where you can draw a box defining the area to zoom to.

REMEASURE USING

• Set the type of remeasurement you want to do (see Remeasuring above)

CANCEL

• Cancel a remeasurement (only is on when a remeasurement is taking place)

SAVE

• Save all remeasurement and whether a vowel was removed from the plot this will either overwrite the old files or you can specify a new location to write the files to using File > Change Save Directory

UNDO

• This will undo the most recent vowel remeasurement or removal

REDO

• This will redo the last undid action

REMOVE FROM PLOT

• Clicking this will let you remove vowel from the plot either by clicking them or by drawing a box to select multiple at once
• The smaller button lets you add a note when removing vowels:
  • good = "this vowel is measured properly"
  • bad = "this vowel is measured improperly (and it was removed instead of remeasuring it)
  • note = add a note about the removed vowels

###Other Things

• Right click a vowel on the plot to display information about it

• Clicking on overlapping vowels will pop out a zoomed in portion of the plot so you can choose which of the overlapping vowels you actually meant to click

• The CMU phonetic alphabet at the bottom of the panel is permanent but you can select a new alternate phonetic alphabet with View > Change Alternate Phonetic Alphabet

• This will open a window which will allow you to either define your own phonetic alphabet (by entering the vowel labels in the grid) or load a preset one.

• To load a preset alphabet click Open.

  • Current Presets are CELEX and IPA

##License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Montreal Language Modeling Lab (McGill University)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.