Manual vs. Automatic

em português

Manual vs. Automatic measurements

     Manual (mouse clicking) acoustic analysis of natural sounds can easily take a lot of time. In addition, measurements require the categorization of continuous change in amplitude (call duration, number of pulses, number of harmonics). The decision rules that one uses for determining start and end points should be objective, consistent and explicitly published, but that is rarely the case.
     Automatic measurement can be very fast and objective, with explicit measurement algorithms and parameters. There is usually a risk, however, of an unexpected acoustic situation causing the automated system to proceed in an inadequate way and produce distorted results.
     Sound Ruler tries to bring you the best of both options with interactive analysis. The program shows you graphically the results of each procedure, and you decide to accept, skip or adjust each measurement. This way, you keep most of the speed and objectivity of an automatic analysis, but you can detect and eliminate unexpected situations that your algorithms cannot process appropriately. You can use an iterative process to decide on the algorithms and parameters that are best suited for analyzing your sounds. You do that before the analysis, without saving results. Once you are satisfied with the parameters, do the analysis without changing them.
     Sound Ruler can be used to analyze a same signal at various levels of automation and complexity. It is the responsibility of the user to decide on the most appropriate methods for each analysis.


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