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USERS’ MANUAL

INTRODUCTION

The goal of this system is to enable users to listen to images. Moving the cursor over an image produces a sound. The sounds correspond to the pixel intensities: low data values produce low sounds and high data values produce high sounds. In short, the system emulates a device similar to a metal detector.

The system was developed on Windows Platform. We chose to work with MIDI primarily due to its ease of use and clean interface with Java supported by javax.sound.midi package. The documentation for this package can be found by browsing to www.java.sun.com. Other than altitude (contours) data, the system can be used to in weather forecasting, where the pixel data values could represent temperature, rainfall etc.
The following figure shows the screenshot of the user interface. Click on the image to view the enlarged version. Sounds are generated based on the RGB values of the pixels under the mouse cursor. The requirements implemented include:

REQUIREMENTS IMPLEMENTED

0. As mouse moves over the image the RGB value of the pixel, under the mouse cursor, is captured and mapped onto 127 different available tones. In general rough or dark pixels cause a sharp sound while light areas result in a blunt tone. This feature can be inverted by clicking on the "Invert Tone" button. It design also incorporates the following :

1. Volume Control
2. Mute button
3. Channels/Instruments -The user can select from among 400 different instruments and 16 channels to play the sounds. Playing an instrument in different channels gives a different feel.
4. Invert Tone - Inverts the tone based on RGB values of the pixel.
5. Continuous/Discontinuous Tone -
The user can choose a continuous or a discontinuous tone.

6. FootPrint Size
The foot print can be varied so as to increase the size of the cursor and hear neighborhood data values. If the cursor covers more than one data value then the average of the data values under the cursor footprint is heard. The cursor sizes could be 1, 9 or 25 pixels.

7. Load Image
Use the "load" button to load a different image from the file system.
8. GIF and JPEG image formats are supported

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Users' Manual

XP Experience

Future Scope

Usability Tests

Info. for Testing Users

Screen Shot

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