This application is meant to support the process of creation/design of auditory assets. The traditional approach in making such assets is following and unstructured and undocumented process of communication between persons that need the sound to be made and persons that design/create the sound. This solution offers the iterative workflow supported by tags and tagged audible examples of auditory assets and sounds.
A preprint of a paper describing the tool may be found at:
Bazilinskyy, P., Cieler, S., & De Winter, J. C. F. (2018). Sound design process for automotive industry. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325846614_Sound_design_process_for_the_automotive_industry
Whith pip install virtual environment in the project folder:
pip install virtualenv
Then install flask framework in the folder:
virtualenv flask
If you are on Linux, OS X or Cygwin, install flask and extensions by entering the following commands, one after another:
$ flask/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
If you are on Windows the commands are slightly different:
$ flask\Scripts\pip.exe install -r requirements.txt
Then, a database needs to be initialised:
$ flask/bin/python db_create.py
On Windows:
$ flask\Scripts\python.exe db_create.py
To run the application, after initial setup as explained in the section above, simply run the command (on Unix-based system):
$ flask/bin/python run.py
Or on Windows:
$ flask\Scripts\pyhton.exe run.py
After the server initializes it will listen on port 5000 waiting for connections:
http://localhost:5000
Parameters of the application can be adjusted in the file config.py. Families of sounds can be managed in sound_families.py. Types of sounds can be managed in sound_types.py.
Unless a user was provided with an account for the application, user must register to use the application at register. All views in the application can be views by logged in users only. Users can be of two types: clients and suppliers:
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Clients are those participants in the process that need auditory assets to be be designed, i.e. they describe such assets and ask suppliers to make them. Clients then also verify if provided iterations of needed assets satisfy requirements and needs of the clients.
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Suppliers are those participants in the process that design auditory assets based on initial and updated descriptions received from the clients.
Sound creation with use of the application follows a cycle description -> iteration -> verification. Users participating in the creation process can be notified by email when they need to take action for a particular asset.
In order to create an asset one needs to add a project at add_project. After a new project has been added the user can add assets to the project at add_asset.
After logging in the user it redirected to the home page at index. This page contains a list of active assets, which are in one of three stages of the workflow description, iteration, verification, refer to Fig. 1 below. If an asset that the user is working on is not "in hands" of the user, i.e. another user needs to send the asset further along the workflow process, the asset is shown in the list In other hands.
Figure 1. Sound design process.
Please refer to Fig. 2 for an example of the homepage as seen by a client that requests four assets to be made: 1) The asset Spearcon for activation 01 requires a new descriptions, since the iteration of version 1 was not accepted as final; 2) The asset Beep for right overtaking needs to be verified, because the supplier working on the asset provided the first iteration; 3-4) The assets Earcon for TOR abd Beep for left overtaking are In other hands, meaning that the client, who's homepage you may see on the figure, does not have to take any actions for the assets in question at the moment, i.e. in this case these two assets need to be supplied with iterations by assigned suppliers.
Figure 2. Example of homepage of client.
The horizontal menu contains the search input field. The input becomes hidden on small window sizes.
New projects can be added at add_project. Project cannot be deleted.
New asset can be added at add_asset. Assets cannot be deleted, but they can be marked as finished at the verification stage. In the asset creation page, a client can specify pitch, which take any input (e.g. "A#"). It is also possible to specify duration of the asset, which take any input (e.g. "~250 ms").
Each asset must be assigned to at least one client and at least one supplier. Corresponding users must be selected from multiple choice selection boxes at the state of creation of the asset description in add_asset.
The database contains tags, which can be used for descriptions of assets and tagging sounds. A list of all tags is available at tags. These are all tags that were added by users of the system. New tag can be added at add_tag. Tags can be deleted at delete_tag.
Also preset tags can be added to the database. The urgency is represented by four tags: urgent-1, urgent-2, urgent-3, and urgent-4. These tags represent the scale of urgentness, with urgent-1 being least urgent and urgent-4 being most urgent.
The database contains sounds, which serve as examples for description of assets. A list of all sounds is available at sounds. These are all sounds that were added by users of the system. New sound can be added at add_sound. Sounds can be tagged with tags in the database. Each sound must be in one of sound families and it need to be of one of sound types. Sounds can be deleted at delete_sound.