Hi everyone,
Just a few comments on this exchange. My own (hopefully informed)
opinion, of course, for which only I am responsible.
I will also take this opportunity to ask if anyone on the list is
willing help with the work we are doing.
On Jan 13, 2009, at 12:10 PM, Marcelo Yassunori Matuda wrote:
Hi Gregory,
I didn't port GnuSpeech to GNUstep. I just made some adjustments to
the makefiles and fixed some bugs.
"Gnuspeech" is really a *suite* of programs, as described on the
savannah web page for the project:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuspeech/
Monet is probably the most important and inclusive part because: (a)
it allows the articulatory speech synthesis to be checked out with
arbitrary short input text segments; (b) it forms the core of the
tools needed to build databases for an arbitrary language; and (c)
Monet involves nearly all the components needed for other items such
as the TextToSpeech (TTS) server, or daemon, that allows unrestricted
text-to-speech synthesis as a service to any application.
For the OS X stream, this TTS server daemon has just been ported/
rewritten by Dalmazio Brisinda (who gained significant experience
with the original NeXT suite whilst implementing an audio-tactile
system to allow visually disabled users to access documents using
many cues translated from the visual domain into auditory and tactile
form). The daemon it is basically Monet with all the interactive and
other unnecessary stuff stripped out, plus other changes appropriate
to its revised purpose. The complete suite of Apps comprising the
nascent Gnuspeech is described in the web page cited above, which
also indicates some history and includes the main originators.
Monet was ported/rewritten for Mac OS X from the original NeXT
implementation by Steve Nygard who also did some work on the original
NeXT version.
For Marcelo to have got a working (if buggy/untested) version of
Monet working on GNUstep, is a very significant advance (thanks
Marcelo) towards our goal of having the whole Gnuspeech suite running
under GNUstep on GNU/Linux. The OS X work has been of significant
help in this endeavour because of the very close similarities to
NeXTSTEP, OpenStep, GNUstep, coupled with being more complete much
sooner than GNUstep.
I am currently rewriting/porting "Synthesizer", to OS X as a step
towards a GNUstep version. Synthesizer is the second important
component in creating the databases needed for arbitrary language
articulatory text-to-speech synthesis -- in the absence of a
comprehensive set of articulatory X-rays of the vocal tract making
the sounds of the language, since it allows the sounds of a language
to be related to the articulatory postures needed for articulatory
synthesis, as well as giving the user insight into the vocal tract
model. The third component (and not as easy as it may sound) is the
creation of the necessary pronunciation dictionary (plus letter-to-
sound rules to catch words not in the dictionary). As part of the
third component, a parser is also necessary to manage derivatives of
dictionary words, handling of special cases (e.g. dates, real
numbers, abbreviations and such). These third component items
already exist for English and are incorporated (or some are soon to
be incorporated, since there are several layers) in all of the NeXT,
OS X and GNUstep versions of Monet. The dictionary has more than
70,000 primary words in it, and the parser manages derivatives.
"Synthesizer" is close to being available in a 0.5 version release.
And Monet is not very stable in GNUstep (probably the OSX version is
better). It crashes when I open certain windows, for example. What is
working reasonably well is the sequence: open diphones.mxml / enter
the text / synthesize the speech.
Please, replace the announcement in the wiki with:
"GnuSpeech synthesis is working in GNUstep!"
I would like to display this app more prominently on the GNUstep
wiki and
the GNUstep website front page. If you have any pictures or
screenshots you
can share I would very much appreciate it. :)
There is the manual for the OS X version of Monet. It would be
fairly straightforward to replace all the screen shots with the
corresponding NeXT version screen shots. Using real GNUstep screen
shots might take a little longer.
It seems that you haven't downloaded / compiled it... we need more
testers! :)
Maybe I am the only one who tested it...
Maybe so far. Lots of alligators in my swamp but I hop to do some
testing myself shortly. "Synthesizer" is my top priority for now
I am going to put up an entry for it now and we can edit it if you
like.
:) The wiki is at http://wiki.gnustep.org and the main website
is, of
course, http://www.gnustep.org.
GnuSpeech is a very interesting project. IMHO the GNUstep developers
could participate in it. I am just a GNUstep/ObjC newbie...
Regards,
Marcelo
All good wishes.
david
--------
David Hill
Gnuspeech project admin
[email protected]
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnuspeech
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~hill
--------
Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest
treasures (Tao Te Ching #67)
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