wrel3.1.doc

speech signal process tools

waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes                      page 1


              waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes

                Document Version: 1.1 2/1/93

1.  INTRODUCTION

This new release of waves+,  prepared  for  distribution  in
January  1993, provides new features requested by our custo-
mers.  It also provides fixes to many bugs  and  removal  of
numerous annoyances.  In addition, the software and documen-
tation improvements embodied in this release are part of the
groundwork  for  significant feature enhancements to come in
future releases.


1.1.  Version 3.1 Release Highlights

   + xchart: a new display  method  for  lattices  of  time-
     series labels

   + full editing and display support for aperiodically sam-
     pled time series

   + streamlined software license facilities

   + improved control of output file destinations

   + enhanced control over "server mode" operation

   + greatly improved D/A and A/D (play and record) programs

   + enhanced scrolling and random access in long data files

   + xspectrum now permits FFT's of unlimited size

   + fine-grained control of harmonic spectrum cursors

   + enhanced xwaves startup environment and control panels

   + updated documentation


1.2.  Compatibility with Previous Versions

Xwaves is backwards compatible with  Version  2.1  with  the
following exceptions:

The program xwaves now has only one  official  name.   Simi-
larly, the attachments, xspectrum, xlabel, xchart and xmarks
have only one official name each.  We provide  an  installa-
tion  option  to  generate  symbolic  links  to  the various
aliases (xvwaves, waves+, xwaves+, ...),  but  we  encourage
you  to  join  us in eliminating this confusion once and for










waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes                      page 2


all!  The name waves+ is now used only to refer to the  col-
lection  of  programs and documentation comprising the whole
product.

xwaves is only available for use with the X  window  system.
The Sunview version is no longer available.

The display server potential of  xwaves  has  been  signifi-
cantly  increased  by  allowing  send_xwaves  to  block  (by
default) until the sent command is complete.  Shell  scripts
that  counted  on non-blocking behavior should be changed by
inserting the -B  command-line  option  in  the  send_xwaves
calls.

Wcheckout has been eliminated.  All  auxiliary  xwaves  pro-
grams now run whether xwaves is running or not.  This should
make life more pleasant, but if you have  old  UNIX  scripts
that ran wcheckout, you should remove these calls.

Filenames entered into xwaves no longer have "./"  automati-
cally   prepended  to  the  internal  representation.   This
behavior caused subquent references  to  files  loaded  into
xwaves to be incorrect, since the user had no way of knowing
that the name (as far as xwaves was concerned) had a leading
"./".   This  fixes  apparent bugs in several commands (e.g.
align) that reference specific files.  If you worked  around
this  deficiency in your shell scripts or send_xwaves calls,
you may need to remove the leading "./"  from  scripts  that
reference these files.

The programs wplay and wrecord have been replaced by v32play
and v32record, respectively.  These provide dual-channel D/A
and A/D with the AT&T/Heurikon SURF VME board,  and  provide
single-channel play and record for the old AT&T dsp32 "FAB2"
board.  The new programs read/write  directly  from/to  disk
and have several other improvements.

The  scope  of  the   xwaves   parameters   image_clip   and
image_range  has  been  broadened to include adjustments for
color/greyscale systems.  Formerly,  these  only  influenced
the  intensity  mapping for monochrome dithered spectrograms
and   images.    Since   they   now   provide   control   of
color/greyscale  as well, you may discover that the settings
in your personal .wave_pro profile or in the default profile
found  in  $ESPS_BASE/lib/waves/.wave_pro  are  not  to your
taste.  Increasing image_clip darkens the image;  decreasing
image_range increases the contrast.

You may now have to find some other reason to take long cof-
fee  breaks; we've eliminated three.  Xwaves and the attach-
ments can no longer hang up the mouse and monitor.  Previous
versions  occasionally  did  this,  requiring  you  to login
remotely or reboot your system to regain  control.   Another










waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes                      page 3


impact   on   coffee  breaks  comes  from  the  new  program
freewaves.  Previously, if xwaves exited ungracefully,  e.g.
by  a  UNIX  kill command, the license was left occupied for
three minutes.  It is now left for only 30 seconds,  and  if
this  is  too long, just issue the freewaves command to free
it immediately.  Finally, the license  control  daemon  elmd
now  only requires one minute to initialize, rather than the
three minutes required in Version 2.1.


2.  NEW FEATURES

The primary aim of the Version 3.1 release of waves+  is  to
fix problems and ro make the overall operation of the system
smoother.  This also lays the groundwork for major  enhance-
ments  to  come  later in the Spring of 1993.  Entropic has,
however added the new features listed below to Version 3.1.


2.1.  xwaves

The xwaves spectrogram  command  now  has  four  additional,
optional  arguments.  The keywords height and width (in pix-
els) permit specification of the presentation dimensions  on
the  screen.  If horizontal and vertical rescale are enabled
(with h_spect_rescale and v_spect_rescale), the  spectrogram
will  be scaled to fit the requested dimensions.  If scaling
is disabled, the spectrogram display will  either  clip  the
data  image  or be limted in maximum size to the data image.
The new keywords  range  and  threshold  provide  means  for
specifying  the  intensity mapping parameters when the spec-
trogram is created.  Previously, this was only available via
the separate colormap command.

A new time display mode has been added to xwaves.  When  the
cursor  is  in  the  scrollbar  region  near  the top of the
display, the time readout is now for the  whole  file.  This
allows  accurate  direct  access  to any part of the signal.
Note that the time/frequency cursor is now frozen  when  the
mouse  is in the scrollbar region.  The "Time:" item changes
to "Time(f):" when the mouse is  in  the  scrollbar  region.
Thus: if it is necessary to scroll to a particular time in a
long file: move the mouse pointer into the scrollbar region;
move  it  right  or  left until the "Time(f):" display reads
approximately the desired time; press the middle mouse  but-
ton.  The desired time will then be centered in the display.

The startup environment invoked by the .wave_pro entry
    init_file  $ESPS_BASE/lib/waves/commands/xw_init.WC
has been improved.  (This init_file is what  brings  up  the
"Miscellaneous  xwaves  Controls"  button  panel.)   Changes
include:











waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes                      page 4


   + spectral averaging can be added to image menus

   + hardcopy ESPS plots can be added to menus

   + some buttons are now menu-buttons to provide shortcuts

   + there's a quick way to turn rescale on and off

   + when plot3d is added, server mode is enabled

Xwaves now reads, displays, edits and writes ESPS tagged FEA
files  correctly.   This means xwaves can be used to manipu-
late any aperiodically-sampled time series.  It also  aligns
these  correctly with other data types.  Thus, all ESPS sig-
nal files, including those produced by programs like lpcana,
may  now  be  displayed  correctly  using  xwaves.  The ESPS
manual describes how to write ESPS tagged files from C  pro-
grams.   If  you have aperiodic data in ASCII form generated
by some non-ESPS process, you can build a tagged  ESPS  file
acceptable  to  xwaves  and ESPS programs with a UNIX script
like the following:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
# $1    data type: DOUBLE, FLOAT, LONG, or SHORT
# $2    size: number of elements per record (columns), not counting tag
# $3    src_sf: sampling frequency of the data to which the tags refer
# $4    input: name of ASCII input file
# $5    output: name of output tagged FEA file

# The first column in the input file contains the "tags".  These are
# sample (record) indices into the file from which the remaining columns
# were derived.  This "source" file was sampled at "src_sf" samples per
# second.  This script assumes the remaining columns are all of the data
# type specified by $1.

USE_ESPS_COMMON=off; export USE_ESPS_COMMON

prog=$0

case $# in
5)
    type=$1
    size=$2
    freq=$3
    input=$4
    output=$5
    ;;
*)
    echo "Usage: $prog type size src_sf input_file output_file"
    exit 1
    ;;










waves+ Version 3.1 Release Notes                      page 5


esac

# Pick a format string for reading data of the specified type with scanf.

case $type in
DOUBLE)
    fmt="%lf"
    ;;
FLOAT)
    fmt="%f"
    ;;
LONG)
    fmt="%ld"
    ;;
SHORT)
    fmt="%hd"
    ;;
*)
    echo "$prog: can't handle type $type"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

# Create a format file for use with addfeahd.

fmtfile=/tmp/fmt$$
cat >$fmtfile <<EOF
Tag      LONG   1       %ld
data     $type  $size   $fmt
EOF

# Create output file (untagged).
# Tag data go into an ordinary field named "Tag".

addfeahd -c "$0 $*" -a $fmtfile $input $output 2>/dev/null

# Now make a couple of changes with fea_edit to turn the output file
# into a tagged file:
# 1) Change the "common.tag" flag to indicate a tagged file by changing
#    the first 0 to 1 in the first line ("0 0 0 << do not edit >>") of the
#    fea_edit display.
# 2) Remove the field definition for "Tag".
# (This oblique technique for generating tagged files from ESPS-external
# data will not be necessary in future Entropic software releases.)

EDITOR=ed; export EDITOR
fea_edit $output <<EOF 2>/dev/null 1>&2
1s/0/1/
/Tag LONG/d
w
q

EOF