Karl Kornel 964857 Posted May 9, 2009 at 07:35 AM Posted May 9, 2009 at 07:35 AM (edited) Hello all! Some weeks ago, I decided to create the necessary files so vZID Euroscope controllers could use the automated ATIS functionality. At the time, though, I was at a loss about how to create things quickly and easily, especially having to record the names of all towers airports in our airspace. This is no longer a problem! I now have a set of programs, where if you give it a list of things to say, you will get the .wav files and the AtisFiles.txt file, automatically! The requirements are: A Macintosh computer (required by the next item) Mac OS X (for the built-in speech generation and scripting functionality) QuickTime Pro (for access to the file export functionality) At http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18635216/vZID%20ATIS.zip you can download a .zip archive containing the current vZID files, the two scripts used to create them, and a README file. (If WinZip also extracted a "__MACOSX" directory, you can delete it.) Good luck! The drop was last updated on 6 March 2010. P.S. I have also created, using the magic of Perl and recursive-descent parsing! You can get to it using the URL http://karl.kornel.name/metar2es.cgi?metar=$metar($atisairport)&atiscode=$atiscode&arrrwy=$arrrwy($atisairport)&deprwy=$deprwy($atisairport). It should work with all U.S. METARs. If you ever get an error that a METAR can't be p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]d, please send me the METAR and the Extracted URL via private message! Edited November 26, 2011 at 07:30 AM by Guest A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gergely Csernak Posted May 11, 2009 at 08:08 AM Posted May 11, 2009 at 08:08 AM Thx Karl, I made it sticky to remain on the top area for a while. Gergely. EuroScope developer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Nahin Posted July 5, 2009 at 08:08 PM Posted July 5, 2009 at 08:08 PM any way this can be ported to Windows? Blake Nahin VATUSA Data Services Manager https://vatusa.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonas Eberle Posted July 9, 2009 at 07:52 AM Posted July 9, 2009 at 07:52 AM You will have to develop your own tutorial for Windows. The essential part in THIS tutorial depends on Mac OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted July 19, 2009 at 08:14 AM Author Posted July 19, 2009 at 08:14 AM any way this can be ported to Windows? Jonas' answer is correct. The best I can do is to give you some info on the technologies that are used. The process of creating the .wav files is in two phases. Phase I is to create the sound files in AIFF format. A Perl script is used to drive Phase I. Perl already exists on Windows, so that is good, although the script might need to be adjusted to deal with Windows path naming conventions (for example, using \ instead of / for directory separation). The actual program that generates the AIFF sound files, `say`, is part of the Mac OS X text-to-speech subsystem, which has been around since the original Macintosh. You would need to find a substitute program that would work on Windows. Also I should note, the Mac OS team have had over 20 years to work on and improve the voices available; your substitute should be of similar quality. The conversion to a 7.35 kHz Wave file really does reduce the quality of the recording. As I said above, the `say` command outputs in AIFF format, so Phase II is to convert the recording files into their final format. I actually tried to go open-source first on this, by looking into the mencoder/mplayer set of programs. Unfortunately, not only could they not recognize the AIFF format, they also could not deal with sample rates below 8 kHz. In fact, I found that alot of programs would fail when asked to go below 8 kHz. In the end, QuickTime Pro was the only program that would open AIFF, work with sample rates under 8 kHz, and do all of this in an automated fashion. QuickTime Pro is available for Windows. QuickTime Pro is a Mac OS X application, not a command-line tool like `say`, so it is going to use AppleScript as an automation mechanism. The script that implements Phase II, therefore, is written in AppleScript. I do not believe that AppleScript exists in Windows, but I do know that QuickTime in Windows has a COM/ActiveX interface available. It may be possible to use this. So, there you go! The major barrier to a Windows implementation of this would be an exemplary text-to-speech program that can be used in an automated fashion. After that, it would be a matter of figuring out the QuickTime COM/ActiveX interface. Will I work on this? No; I already have a working solution, and I don't plan on switching from a Mac anytime soon! There is one other thing I can do: I can add additional words and airport names to the download. I would just need to know what they should be (best to send that info by private message). Later! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted September 27, 2009 at 08:08 AM Author Posted September 27, 2009 at 08:08 AM The drop was last updated on 26 September 2009. Since my voice ATIS package was released, I've made a number of updates: I have updated both the CGI script behind the ATIS maker URL, and the voice files that are included in the .zip archive. I am now keeping a log of changes made on the drop.io site. I do not want to constantly post updates here (or else the topic will get too big), so I will simply be updating my original post to show when the most recent change took place. If you are using the voice ATIS files that I am creating, then you can check the date on my first post. If the date means that you downloaded an older .zip file, you should go to the drop.io site to see if the changes made are important to you. Later! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted December 29, 2009 at 01:04 AM Author Posted December 29, 2009 at 01:04 AM Hi all, After a quick check, it appears the voice files work with EuroScope 3.1 unchanged. However, you may need to re-enter the voice ATIS URL, and you may need to re-load the AtisFiles.txt file. Otherwise, though, things appear OK! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Florance 906409 Posted December 29, 2009 at 01:11 AM Posted December 29, 2009 at 01:11 AM Hey Karl whats the URL again please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted December 29, 2009 at 04:14 AM Author Posted December 29, 2009 at 04:14 AM Hey Karl whats the URL again please? Check out http://drop.io/vZIDcomputerATIS, or check out the P.S. of my first post! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted March 6, 2010 at 08:59 PM Author Posted March 6, 2010 at 08:59 PM In under an hour, I'm going to be pushing out a new version of the code and audio files. This update will include a 5-second period of "silence" at the end of the ATIS. This was a request submitted to me a while ago, and today it's here! Oh, BTW, it won't actually be silence. If I just put in five seconds of silence, I expecting people to say "did the ATIS just disappear?" For those who are wondering, it will be 5 seconds of pink noise, mono, amplitude 0.01, from Audacity. It was recorded in at 7.35 kHz 32-bit float, then converted to 16-bit PCM and exported as a .wav. If you're going to try this at home, don't forget to set the project rate to 7350 Hz before starting! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorge Rojas 1063320 Posted December 25, 2010 at 11:49 PM Posted December 25, 2010 at 11:49 PM May I have an updated link, i am getting an error message saying that the service is discontinued? Thanks! -Jorge Rojas New York Air Route Traffic Control Center VNSM Deputy Webmaster Student 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romano Lara Posted December 26, 2010 at 11:09 AM Posted December 26, 2010 at 11:09 AM May I have an updated link, i am getting an error message saying that the service is discontinued? Thanks! It happens from time to time. We're also using Karl's ATIS template, just wait for it to come alive and try again. Romano LaravACC Philippines, Manager - Training & Standards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Brown 1100739 Posted January 6, 2011 at 06:20 AM Posted January 6, 2011 at 06:20 AM Actually drop.io had been bought by facebook there for all files on the drop are long gone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted November 26, 2011 at 07:34 AM Author Posted November 26, 2011 at 07:34 AM Wow, people were/are actually using my stuff! SHOCK! I didn't know if people still wanted the audio files, but I've moved them over to my Dropbox account. I've already modified the main post to point to the new URL. Let's see how long Dropbox lasts! Anybody else looking for airport name generation? A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Kornel 964857 Posted November 26, 2011 at 08:02 AM Author Posted November 26, 2011 at 08:02 AM Hi all, I've been thinking: It really annoys me when somebody makes something available, and then it disappears forever. I really dislike having that feeling of helplessness, how something you use regularly is suddenly gone. I have decided to publicly release the server-side program that converts METARs into EuroScope script. The file is available here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18635216/metar2es.cgi This is probably not going to be a simple drop-in for your FE or Webmaster. It's written in Perl (but don't let that scare you ), and it requires one Perl module (P[Mod - Happy Thoughts]::RecDescent) that isn't installed by default in most hosting environments. It may take a little bit of work to get going on your own server, but I at least want to open the door for you. If you decide to take it, and use it for yourself, would you mind letting me know? Thanks! A. Karl Kornel - vZID C1, FE, and Mentor Smoke Bomb! POOF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rahul Parkar Posted November 28, 2011 at 07:32 AM Posted November 28, 2011 at 07:32 AM I'm going to steal this for a mini-project I may work on... Thanks Karl! Cheers! Rahul Rahul Parkar "On second thoughts Nappa, catch it, catch it with your teeth" -- Vegeta Professional Nerd. (Professionally not professional) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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