I want to compare the file HTK_Compile_Model_sh.txt (I found it at Voxforge) with the file modelcompilationmanager.cpp. Both files might have similar content.
Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category
modelcompilationmanager.cpp
Saturday, June 13th, 2009Could not finalize the sample
Monday, February 9th, 2009I just wanted to train the word ‘desktop’ with Simon under Ubuntu. But an error message appeared:
Well, I don’t know how to get the neccessary permission.
By the way, normally I am using JACK and Audacity for recordings under Ubuntu.
Importing the new German PLS dictionary
Monday, February 9th, 2009A few hours ago, a new version of the German PLS dictionary has been released. The size is 670 kB. The previous version had 210 kB. I had imported the previous version into Simon.
The shadow lexicon isn’t displayed, but available
Let’s import the new German PLS dictionary.
Importing a dictionary with Simon
And now, you have to select the type of dictionary. You can choose between HADIFIX, HTK, PLS, and SPHINX. Let’s choose PLS.
Selecting PLS as type of dictionary
You have to download the dictionary. Then you can import it.
Import the PLS dictionary into Simon
Now you have to wait a few moments.
Simon is importing the PLS dictionary
Let’s compare the XML version displayed by Firefox with the imported version.
Compare the entry ‘Aachen’
The grapheme ‘Aachen’ has three possible pronounciations: aːxn̩ – aːxən – aːxŋ. All pronounciations are included in the Simon shadow dictionary in HTK compatible format.
So I am happy to see that we are making some progress. Thanks to Timo for releasing the new PLS dictionary.
Please check the paths to mkfa and daf_minimize
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009I just got the following error message:
I checked the paths to mkfa and daf_minimize (H:/Program Files/simon 0.2/bin/mkfa.exe, H:/Program Files/simon 0.2/bin/dfa_minimize.exe). Both executables are available. What is wrong?
I have published the full text of the error message.
simon-0.2-beta-3-win32.exe
Thursday, January 29th, 2009I am now downloading simon-0.2-beta-3-win32.exe. I will install it under Windows XP. But before I do that, I will uninstall an older version of Simon. By the way, Simon is installed on my computer in the following folder:
H:\Program Files\simon 0.2\
I just uninstalled the old version of Simon. It took a few moments.
The new version of Simon as a size of about 28 MB. I hope that someday there will be language packs available.
But there is an error message when I try to install the new version of Simon:
I pressed the Ignore button. But then the next error message appeared. Then I decided to press the Abort button.
By the way, I have Qt 4.4.1 installed on my computer.
simon-0.2-beta-3-Linux.deb
Monday, January 26th, 2009A new version of simon has been released. I will now download and install simon-0.2-beta-3-Linux.deb.
simon-0.2-beta-2-Linux.deb
Friday, January 16th, 2009I am now trying to install simon-0.2-beta-2-Linux.deb. The download is finished. I am now using the Package Installer. I hope that it will work out. Yes, everything seems to be fine. I can start simon and ksimond without any problems.
Bug fix release: Simon 0.2-beta-2
Thursday, January 15th, 2009I just saw that a bug fix release is available. I will check that out later.
Currently, I am examining HTK. And I am making some progress. I hope that I will be able to process more than 10.000 German utterances with the HTK toolkit. I would like to be able to process these prompts (format follows the SSML audio element) with Simon. But how could I achieve this goal? I don’t want to use Simon to record my speech. This is too complicated. I prefer Audacity (because I can record about 30 utterances in just one Audacity session – pretty comfortable – just go to Audacity > File > ‘Export Multiple’).
Simon 0.1 has internet extensions. I would like that a future version of Simon does have an internet extension for the SSML audio element so that I can import these 99 utterances directly from the internet.
The average user is completely lost
Monday, January 12th, 2009After the installation of simon (e.g. under Win XP), the average user will be completely lost. It is not possible to use simon out of the box for speech recognition. But I think that the average user would like to start dictating right after installing simon. It would be great if language packs (German, English) would be available.
Adding the notification area to the panel
Sunday, January 11th, 2009The notification area on my Ubuntu 8.10 desktop was missing. I didn’t know how to fix this issue, so I made a fresh installation. Now I found out how to add the missing notification area. I just have to add it to the panel:
Add the missing notification area to the panel
So the problem was the missing notification area, not ksimond.
ksimond under Intrepid Ibex
Friday, January 9th, 2009A few days ago, I made a fresh installation of Ubuntu 8.10 on an exchangeable hard drive. The reason is that I couldn’t see the ksimond (or simond?) tray icon on the top right corner of the standard Ubuntu screen. I think that the reason is some kind of misconfiguration of my Ubuntu 8.10 desktop. But I don’t know how to fix this issue. So I decided to make a fresh installation.
A few minutes ago, I downloaded and installed simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb. When I select the menu Applications > Universal Access > ksimond, I am able to see the ksimond tray icon on the top right of the Ubuntu 8.10 screen:
Configure – ksimond
There is an error message that the shared library libsimondsettings was not found. Now I start simon via the menu Applications > Universal Access > simon. Then I quit ksimond. I have to confirm that I am sure that I want to quit ksimond. Then I restart ksimond. But the message that the library libsimondsettings was not found, appears again.
I would like to configure a password and a username with ksimond. But at the moment, this is not possible. Under Win XP, it was possible. Why not under Ubuntu? I hope that will figure that out later.
ksimond under Windows XP
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Under Win XP, I just started ksimond (using the start menu). A symbol appears in the notification area. A right click on this symbol reveals several options (Restart simond, Stop simond, Configuration). When I choose Configuration, I am able to configure a user name and the corresponding password:
ksimond displays the username and the encrypted password
I think that the username and the encrypted password are being stored in a database with the name simond.db. On my computer, this is the full path to the database (probably SQLite):
H:\Documents and Settings\xpprof32\Application Data\.kde\share\apps\simond\simond.db
Well, such a database should be available under Ubuntu as well. But when I start ksimond under Ubuntu (after installing the deb-package), I don’t get such a symbol like that one of the Windows notification area. Which GNOME area corresponds to the Windows notification area?
I don’t find a ksimond symbol under Ubuntu (in one of the two GNOME panels) that would open a window for the configuration of a username and a password.
How can I configure simond?
Monday, January 5th, 2009I just started simond (written with a ‘d’ at the end – it is not simon!) by selecting it from the menu Applications > Universal Access > simond. Then the terminal opened and displayed the following message:
simond(6335) SimondControl::startServer: Starting server listening on port 4444
Then I started simon (written without a ‘d’ at the end), and clicked the Connect button in the top left corner of the simon window.
Error message after pressing the Connect button
And the following text is beeing displayed in the terminal:
simond(6335) ClientSocket::ClientSocket: Created ClientSocket with Descriptor 9
simond(6335) ClientSocket::processRequest: Login requested
simond(6335) ClientSocket::slotSocketError: "The remote host closed the connection
"
simond(6335) SimondControl::connectionClosing: Connection dropped from "127.0.0.1"
simond(6335) ClientSocket::~ClientSocket: Deleting client
I would like to know how I can set the password for simond? I have configured a username/password with simon:
Username is ‘a’ – password is ‘a’
But how can I configure the corresponding username / password for simond? Under Win XP, I was able to achieve this task. But under Ubuntu, I am not yet successful.
Selecting English HTK dictionary
Sunday, January 4th, 2009Simon 0.2 on Ubuntu has a good look and feel. This is my first impression. I now want to import the English HTK dictionary from Voxforge.
Selecting English HTK dictionary
After downloading and extracting VoxForge.tgz, I have the file VoxForgeDict on my desktop. I am now importing the file /home/ubuntu/Desktop/VoxForgeDict. The import was successful.
sudo apt-get remove julius
Sunday, January 4th, 2009I just removed julius using the terminal:
ubuntu@ubuntu-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get remove julius
Then I double-klicked on ‘simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb‘, and tried to install the package. But the installation failed, again. The file usr/include/sent/machines.h couldn’t be overwritten because it is also a package in bjulius.dev. So I opened the Synaptic Package Manager. I am now removing ‘julius-voxforge‘ and ‘libjulius-dev‘ with Synaptic Package Manager. And now, I am trying to install the package ‘simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb‘ again.
simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb: Installation was successful
And let’s take a look into the Ubuntu menu Applications - Universal Access:
ksimond, simon, and simond in the menu Applications > Universal Access
What is the difference between ksimond, simon, and simond?
apt-get remove julius
Sunday, January 4th, 2009A few days ago, I tried to install simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb. Obviously, it is necessary to deinstall the Julius package with the command ‘apt-get remove julius‘ before the installation of the package simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb. I will try that later.
The package simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb was created with the packaging system CPack. This package system is obviously not able to resolve package conflicts between Simon and Julius.
Unfortunately, Simon 0.2 doesn’t seem to work out of the box. I would just like to dictate a few words with Simon. But until now, I wasn’t successful.
By the way, my primary focus is not command and control. It is just dictation. But I have to define a grammar. How can I do that? How is it possible to define a grammar? I have read a few lines in the HTK book about a sample grammar. But I don’t know how to integrate such a sample grammar into Simon. A simple grammar can be found in the HTK book chapter 3.1.1 (page 24). Would such a grammar be suitable for Simon?
And I would like to be able to switch between the German and the English language. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.5 Preferred (which I am using) it is possible to switch between English and German. It would be great if such an option would be available in Simon.
You can see, there are several problems to solve.
Installing simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008I just downloaded the file simon-0.2-beta-1-Linux.deb from SourceForge.net.
The package installer requires the installation of 30 packages
Now, it is time to press the Install Package button. Administrative rights are required to proceed. So I have to type in the password of my Ubuntu operating system. It takes a few moments to install the package files. But then, the installation is finished. How is it possible to start Simon? I am trying to use the terminal. But it doesn’t work out. A command with the name simon is not found. So I have to find a different way. What should I do now? Let’s download the platform independant source tarball simon-0.2-beta-1-Source.tar.bz2.
Extracted files from simon-0.2-beta-1-Source.tar.bz2
At the moment, I don’t know what to do. How can I start Simon? Well, I am using now the Search for Files... option to find out where I can find the Simon executable. But I was not successful. Let’s stop here. I will look for a solution later.
kbuildsycoca4.exe; PLS
Sunday, December 28th, 2008A few hours ago, I tried to install simon-0.2-beta-1-win32.exe. The installation was successful, but I wasn’t able to start Simon. Now I tried a different way. First, I started ‘H:\Program Files\simon 0.2\bin\kbuildsycoca4.exe‘, and then I started Simon 0.2 in the Windows start menu. And now it worked.
Simon version 0.2-beta-1
I am interested to know whether it is possible to import the German PLS dictionary (this version has been formatted with XSLT). Let’s take a look at the following screenshot:
It should be possible to import the German PLS lexicon.
In Simon version 0.1, it wasn’t possible to import a PLS lexicon. That is an improvement. After pressing the next button, you are asked to provide the PLS/XML dictionary.
Obviously, other dictionaries provide information about terminals of the words. What does this mean? Why would it be useful to provide terminals?
Import a PLS dictionary
In my opinion, it would be useful if such a dictionary would be an integral part of Simon (without the need to download and import it). I want to get started as fast as possible. And I would like to see some results. But it is getting better and better. Version 0.2 seems to be easier to handle than version 0.1. You don’t have to ask for the HADIFIX-BOMP from the University of Bonn. You can just take the German PLS dictionary. Will it work? The German pronunciation dictionary contains a lot of special characters (ä,ö,ü,ß; IPA-symbols). Well, I will see.
Let’s take a look at the encoding of the German PLS dictionary. It is UTF-8. I hope that this character encoding will be OK. Keep in mind: character encoding is a major issue when it comes to non-ASCII characters. I don’t like these problems. But they seem to occur on a regular basis (this applies to languages like Spanish as well).
Well, I think that I will save the German PLS lexicon. I have just done that. Now I have to import it. On my computer, it has the path ‘H:/Documents and Settings/xpprof32/My Documents/200812/german.xml‘. Let’s see whether it will work out. I am now pressing the next button. Simon indicates that the dictionary has been imported successfully.
I just marked the option to include unused words from the shadow lexicon:
Obviously, the German PLS dictionary has become the shadow lexicon
And I think that the IPA symbols have been transformed into ASCII characters. That is really great. Why is that great? Because it is pretty comfortable to create a pronunciation dictionary using IPA symbols. They are pretty good readable by the human eye. But the computer needs ASCII characters. Obviously, Simon transforms the IPA symbols into ASCII characters automatically.
Simon indicates that the category is unknown. And at the moment, the recognition rate of all the words is zero. Of course, I haven’t tried to do some recognition yet.
Let’s stop here. I was able to start Simon version 0.2 (after starting kbuildsycoca4.exe). And I was able to import the German PLS dictionary.
Installing simon-0.2-beta-1-win32.exe
Sunday, December 28th, 2008I am now trying to install Simon under Windows XP. I am visiting the download page. The file that I need has the name simon-0.2-beta-1-win32.exe. It has a size of about 28 MB.
The download needs a few minutes.
Welcome to the Simon 0.2 Setup Wizard
The wizard will guide you through the installation of Simon 0.2. Well, I won’t close the other applications on my desktop. Or maybe I should do so? Click next to continue.
Accept the license agreement General public license
By default, Simon 0.2 does not add its directory to the system path. I think that I should do that. So I will choose “Add simon to the system PATH for all users”. And I choose the option to create a Simon desktop icon.
Simon 0.2 will be added to the system path
On my computer, Simon will be installed in the destination folder “H:\Program Files\simon 0.2″.
Choosing the destination folder for Simon
Wow, it requires about 90 MB space. That’s a lot. But commercial speech recognition software requires much more space. I am pretty sure that a future version of Simon will require much more space than this 0.2 version.
Now it is time to choose the components. I think that I will install all components.
Choosing the Simon components
I was able to select all components except the documentation. Is this a bug? Well, never mind. So I will just install the following components: applications, commands, development, localization (and not documentation). After selecting the components, I press the install button.
It takes a few minutes to install Simon.
Please wait while Simon 0.2 is being installed
The installation of Simon is now finished.
The Simon 0.2 setup Wizard is now completed. Simon 0.2 is now installed on the computer. Click finish to close the wizard.
When you visit the Windows start menu, you can see that Simon 0.2 has been installed.
Simon 0.2 in the Windows start menu
Well, I just tried to start Simon, but there seems to be a problem.
Unfortunately, there is a problem.
OK, so I was able to install the new version of Simon. But there is a problem when I want to start the program. Maybe I will try it again.
Simon 0.2-beta-1 is available for download
Sunday, December 28th, 2008A few hours ago, Simon 0.2-beta-1 has been released. You can get it for Linux, and for Windows 32-bit. I haven’t tested the new release yet. But I am planning to do so. The new version should be able to import a PLS pronunciation dictionary.
