Sonify Data#

Plugin Availability

The plugin will be visible when at least one compatible dataset is loaded.

Convert data to audio for sonification analysis.

Description#

The Sonify Data plugin converts spectral or spatial data into audio, providing an alternative way to explore data patterns through sound.

The plugin requires the Strauss package to turn data cubes into audio grids. The audio produced by this sonification (via the Sonify Data button) can be played by hovering the mouse over the 3D Spectrum viewer. A range of the cube can be sonified by applying a spectral subset to the data before sonifying. The output device for sound can be changed by using the Sound device dropdown.

Once sonified, the resulting layers can be adjusted in the Plot Options plugin so that multiple sonified layers can be adjusted like a mixing board.

Key Features:

  • Convert spectra to audio

  • Map flux to pitch/volume

  • Playback controls

  • Export audio files

Note

For mac m-series users, the Strauss library requires the sounddevice and PortAudio libraries. In order to avoid errors with the sonification process, sounddevice and PortAudio must be installed as follows (these steps can be followed either before or after installing Strauss itself):

  1. Download the latest/stable PortAudio release from PortAudio’s website.

  2. Unpack the tarball and cd into the portaudio directory.

  3. Following the ‘debug’ build instructions, run ./configure --enable-mac-debug && make && sudo make install. This will place a “libportaudio.dylib” in the directory “usr/local/lib/” which sounddevice will link to.

  4. Install sounddevice via pip (not conda as conda will attempt to install and link to it’s own portaudio).

  5. Install Strauss if not already done and proceed with the sonification.

UI Access#

Click the Sonify icon in the plugin toolbar to:

  1. Select data to sonify

  2. Configure audio mapping

  3. Play/pause audio

  4. Export audio file

API Access#

plg = cubeviz.plugins['Sonify']
# Configure and generate audio

API References#

Only the following attributes and methods are available through the public plugin API:

For detailed API documentation, see SonifyData.

See Also#