Downloads
Ultrasound application for Recording, Client assessment and Visual feedback
SonoSpeech (download V220.04.2) 613Mb [released 21 Feb 2023]
Bug Fix: A backward incompatible change to the python Numpy library prevented Deeplabcut from functioning. This installer forces the installation of the previous version of numpy so that Deeplabcut functions properly.
SonoSpeech (download V220.04.1) 613Mb [released 11 Nov 2022]
New features: Live tongue contour drawing button via Deeplabcut (Internet access require while installing). Smoother, faster live ultrasound of similar quality to Echowave II. Button Icons changed to be more identifyable. Most reward gifs have been removed as they may have breached copyright. Users can download their own gifs (transparent backgrund works best) and add them to the C:\SonoSpeech\GIFS folder.
Manual for SonoSpeech V220.04 (pdf)
SonoSpeech (download V218.04) 500Mb [released 09 Sept 2019]
New features: The Exemplar window has been changed. It now consists of a single window from which typical speech videos can be loaded OR exemplar frames saved by the clinician and representing the current client's best attempts. There is a new copy/save button to allow such exemplar snapshots to be taken from live or recorded ultrasound. A bug in the reward function has been fixed. teh automatic palate tracing buttons have been enlarged.
Manual for SonoSpeech V218.04 (pdf)
SonoSpeech (download V218.02) 480Mb [released 06 May 2019]
New features: Automatic palate tracing option for overlay. May be useful. Please let us know whether it works for you.
SonoSpeech (download V218.01) 470Mb [released 09 March 2019]
New features: Improved synchronisation (after setting an offset for the PC you are using); Hints for buttons
SonoSpeech (download V217.10) 860Mb [released 17 December 2018]
Bug fixes
SonoSpeech (download V217.08) 860Mb [released 29 October 2018]
New Prompt lists included for a range of target segment assessments and treatment. New example videos for a range of target segments.
Note: In demo mode, the software will show all the functions but live data from Micro or EchoB systems cannot be viewed or recorded. To register the software a license must be purchased from Articulate Instruments.
Check your version (visible on startup) and if it is older than the version above you can download and upgrade for free.
SonoSpeech (download V217.04) 600Mb
Research application for recording and analysing Ultrasound, EPG, EMA and other instrumental data.
MAJOR RELEASE 221
Note: Fully functional. If you have a usb license key (dongle) for the application then you can record and review your own data. Otherwise you are restricted to demonstration data.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V221.2.0) 379Mb [Released 08 Sept 2023]
**WARNING: Once a project is opened with this version, opening in older versions will produce errors. If unicode prompts are not required then it is fine to continue using 220_05_1
221_2_0 Bug fixes and new features:- re-instated the ability to change a recording's prompt. Right-click on prompt in list of checkboxes and select change prompt...
- The Spline workspace can now average DLC_Tongue 2D splines. Averages show the distribution of knots (=keypoints). There is also a function to calculate differences between groups of DLC_Tongue splines. This takes into account the movement of keypoints rather than just the shape in an arbitrary polar or euclidean space.
- The ability to batch convert 2D (e.g. DLC_Tongue) splines to fan splines. The conversion generates a new spline with postfix _Fan. The original 2D splines are preserved. Batch conversion of fan splines to 2D splines is also possible.
- Publisher allows the new 2D mean and differences to be plotted in publishable quality.
Updates to existing features:
- The way that Fan average difference is plotted in spline workspace has changed to make it clearer.
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Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V221.0.4) 369Mb [Released 11 Aug 2023]
**WARNING: Once a project is opened with this version, opening in older versions will produce errors. If unicode prompts are not required then it is fine to continue using 220_05_1
221_0_4 Bug fixes and new features:- Fixed very slow completion of export data.
- Writing out unicode promplists as *.csv now works.
Updates to existing features:
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V221.0.2) 422Mb [Released 21 Jul 2023]
**WARNING: Once a project is opened with this version, opening in older versions will produce errors. If unicode prompts are not required then it is fine to continue using 220_05_1
221_0_2 Bug fixes and new features:- Fixed bug that was failing to refresh annotation labels when typing into the label entry box.
Updates to existing features:
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V221.0.1) 398Mb [Released 12 Jul 2023]
**WARNING: Once a project is opened with this version, opening in older versions will produce errors. If unicode prompts are not required then it is fine to continue using 220_05_1
221_0_1 Bug fixes and new features:- Fixed bug in importing unicode prompts. Now imports Utf-8 correctly and displays the characters correctly during import
- Now resumes live ultrasound display under all conditions after disconnecting and reconnecting the probe/scanner while AAA is running.
Updates to existing features:
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V221.0.0) 398Mb [Released 14 Jun 2023]
**WARNING: Once a project is opened with this version, opening in older versions will produce errors. If unicode prompts are not required then it is fine to continue using 220_05_1
221_0_0 Bug fixes and new features:New Features
- This is a major release which makes modifications to the database structure used by versions 219.x and 220.x. Consequently, once a project is opened with this version, it cannot be opened with an older version without errors. This version introduces unicode for prompts and annotations. It allows any language orthography to be used as a prompt for participants to read. It also means that IPA or any other script can be used to label annotations. If intending to export annotations from AAA and import into another application, consider whether that software can read unicode before labelling in AAA. Note: Unicode characters requiring more than 2 bytes are not supported. This includes pictographic languages such as cuneiform and hieroglyphs; musical notation; and imojis
Updates to existing features:
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.05.1) 398Mb [Released 05 Jun 2023]
220_05_1 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- Added DLC_5splines2.avl file which can be loaded into the analysis values editor to display and calculate distances from short tendon to 5 points along the tongue body.
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- Fixed Bug that prevented Export of video if it was not de-interlaced.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.05.0) 398Mb [Released 19 May 2023]
220_05_0 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- Exporting Spline x/y points can now be set with an origin at either knot 0 or knot 1 of the reference fiducial. This means a fiducial can be placed to represent a bite plate and offset relative to the position of the upper incisors.
- Revision 2 of the DeepLabCut Tongue model is released. Anterior keypoints generated by this model have slightly improved correlation with EMA tongue sensors. Pearson correlation coeffs Tongue Tip x 0.51 y 0.81; Blade x 0.61 y 0.95; Dorsum x 0.65 y 0.94
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- Fixed Bug that prevented Export setup files (*.xsu) from being imported
- Fixed bug that ignored the fiducial specified for offset and rotation of exported spline x/y points
- Fixed bug that caused error after "master fiducial" had been selected in previous use of the application.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.07) 389Mb [Released 10 May 2023]
220_04_7 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- Revised DLC lip model for frontal camera view.
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- Calculating angle, x and y co-ordinates of a spline knot was ignoring the orientation of the reference fiducial spline since version 220_X.
This is now fixed so the Fiducial once again defines the origin AND AXES.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.06) 380Mb [Released 22 April2023]
220_04_6 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- Import ultrasuite now imports *.ult, *.wav, *.avi,*.textgrid, *.spl if corresponding *.txt file exists in the same folder. Note: must select the folder above the folder(s) with the files to be imported.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.05) 380Mb [Released 11 April2023]
220_04_5 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- Fixes bug where duplicate prompts appear in file export dialogue if the prompt appears more than once in the promptlist. This could cause the same file to be exported multiple times.
- Bug introduced in version 220_01. When recording ultrasound, the display would would sometimes freeze and not show the ultrasound feed in real-time during recording.
- In the Ultrasonic display dialogue the checkbox to "Draw Ultrasound Faster" now remembers its state when restarting AAA.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.04) 275Mb [Released 29 March 2023]
220_04_4 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- Now exports a file named [client][date].txt to the application folder with the date and start time (in milliseconds) of each recording as each new recording is completed.
Updates to existing features:
- A "Invalid floating point operation" Error was sometimes generated when selecting a recording in the analysis values window. This has been fixed
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.02) 275Mb [Released 21 February 2023]
220_04_2 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
Updates to existing features:
- The mobilenet right facing model is now the default model. If your data has the tongue pointing to the left, there is a checkbox that willmake this model work with your data.
- Analysis values for 2D spline distances and x or y plots now have an option to calculate distance to any point along the tongue spline and not just the spline knots. An DLC_5splines2.avl file is located in the application folder which plots 5 equally spaced points along the tongue body . To use it go to edit analysis values, browse to the application folder and select this avl file then click import.
- Some analysis value calculations were unsafe, causing errors if key values like splines were not present. These have been corrected
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.04.01) 275Mb [Released 02 November 2022]
220_04_1 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- DeepLabCut(DLC) Automatic installation
- Glossometer and Glossogram displays added and Glossometric analysis task window added
- Splne hue range facility so spline can have a range of colours from one end to the other. Helps confirm direction of spline from knot 0 to N
Updates to existing features:
- Fixed bug introduced last release that prevented recording unless ultrasound was plugged in.
- Spline Workspace: Fixed fatal crash if comparing too many splines at once using Mean Nearest-Neighbour Distance.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V220.02) 275Mb [Released 12 July2022]
220_02 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- DeepLabCut(DLC) feature extraction built into AAA. AAA will install and run DLC to provide tongue splines and position of jaw and hyoid. Models are provided. This also extracts these features on live data as it comes in from the Micro or EchoB systems.
Updates to existing features:
- Function keys added as alternatives to clicking the continuous record button to start and stop.
- New "Precision" option added to find peak/valley function to make it less susceptible to spurious peaks due to rounding errors.
- Export data allows annotated ultrasonic video segments to be exported.
- Tongue shape display now allows a tongue spline with any name to be exported. Previously is would only plot a spline called "Tongue". This allows the new "DLC_Tongue" spline (generated by DLC) to be plotted.
- Mean Sum of distances calculation is added to Spline workspace ans well as Analysis values. This allows the distance between one set of splines and another set of splines in the workspace to be calculated.
- Option in ultrasound display dialogue to display preformed bitmap direct from the telemed firmware. A much more responsive live image is possible.
- AAA will popup a message when a new revision is available.
- Can now import wav files, overwriting existing recordings. Useful if you want to apply noise reduction, correct the audio or add a channel. But caution is advised as corrupted audio can make a recording inaccessible.
- Fix to make movie.
- Max field of view for Micro MC4-2R20 probe is corrected from 92 degrees previously to 102 degrees. Max field of view for Micro MC10-5R10 probe is corrected from 156 degrees previously to 136 degrees.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.08) 257Mb [Released 01 April 2022]
219_08 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- New options to set speckle reduction and focus depth in Micro recording setup. [Note: this is preprocessing speckle reduction and cannot be undone after recording like other image processing options.]
Updates to existing features:
- Fix batch splining to only add keyframes to annotated regions.
- Batch splining has new option to not process splines if they already exist.
- Order of Splines is not changed after resplining.
- Fan splining now works for recordings with high line densities.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.07) 257Mb [Released 17 February 2022]
219_07 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- New video type of analysis value including pixel difference value.
- EditSplines can now copy and paste 2D splines as well as Fan Splines. A copied spline can either be pasted as a keyframe elsewhere in the spline or create a new spline from it.
Updates to existing features:
- Synchronisation of ultrasound and video can be done in a batch in a range of dates rather than on just one date.
- When using File | Import | Ultrasuite to import avi, ult, epg and wav data, if the import matches an existing recording, it will now prompt, for each data type, whether to overwrite the current data of that type in the matching recording. This means that avi and wav data can be exported from AAA then processed with external software and re-imported back into AAA without affecting other data such as splines and annotations.
- File | Import | ultrasuite now imports splines in *.spl format.
Data Import Bug Fixes:
Data Export Bug Fixes:
- In column listbox, the “duration” text updates depending on whether Recordings or Annotations selected in Filter.
- No longer crashes if annotation values are selected in the column listbox when Recordings are selected in filter.
Other Bug Fixes:
- Attempt to fix occasional bug that shows the wrong spline shape when selecting keyframe from the keyframes list.
- Fixed bug in the ctrl + click and drag of annotation boundaries and also in the shift + ctrl + click and drag of whole annotations.
- Importing 3D EMA data into existing recordings now synchronises to the sync channel specified in Options|Settings|Carstens. The list of existing recordings and the list of pos files are now chronologically ordered for easy pairing of multiselected files.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.06) 246Mb [Released 14 December 2021]
219_06 Bug fixes and new features:
New Features
- New Analysis Value: Mean Standard Distance (MSD), an analysis value which requires 2 splines. This implementation of Mean Standard Distance compares the most distal points on the spline to the nearest point on the compared spline, such that increasing the length of one spline asymmetrically does not increase the resulting MSD value. If a spline has no points above the minimum confidence, any MSDs depending on it are given as zero.
- New Analysis Value: Spline length. This gives the arc length of a spline from end-to-end, cubically interpolated between spline knots as visually shown. If a spline has no points above the minimum confidence, its length is given as zero.
- Batch Editing Splines: You can now batch-edit all the splines in a project by right-clicking a video or ultrasound display and clicking "Edit Splines", then find this new feature under the "Batch" tab.
- Export data by Spline Keyframes: You can now, for example, export analysis value data such that each row corresponds to a spline keyframe timepoint, or export a still image of the ultrasound at each spline keyframe.
- Spline Import mirroring: You can now choose to import spline .csv data mirrored in the X-axis: there is now a checkbox visible when specifying the settings during import.
Updates to existing features:
- Spline import: Added buttons to reset grid and quickly assign 'x','y','confidence' values. You can now clear selected cells with the delete or backspace keys. Added button to designate confidence value at import.
- The Analysis Value "AB Knot Distance" can now measure the distance between any selected knots on any two splines, rather than requiring one of the splines to be a feducial.
- The Analysis Value "Area" no longer requires the specified feducials M and N to intersect with anything.
- Added raw ultrasonic parameter export compatibility with ultrasuite.
- Ultrasound/Video export: You can now manually choose whether your exported files should begin from the start of the audio or the start of the video, if they are different.
- New default Task Windows added: "2-Screen Ultrasound and Video" and "Separate Windows for All".
Data Import Bug Fixes:
- Change: For compatibility and stability, importing any spline containing more than 50 knots will be automatically subsampled in AAA to within 50 knots by removing every nth knot.
- Fixed crash that could occur if importing a spline from a corrupted data file.
- Fixed splines being imported time-misaligned if the ultrasound or video begins before the audio.
- Fixed splines sometimes importing misaligned to the destination ultrasound/video. The "Make Movie" function (accessable by right-clicking on an ultrasound or video display) now automatically centres videos in both axes.
- Fixed the importing of splines becoming time-misaligned if the imported file has a nonconsecutive data format.
- Spline import now only creates keyframes to exactly match input data, and an issue has been fixed where importing a spline could sometimes create empty keyframes.
- Spline import: Fixed batch video importing. Sped up batch importing.
- Spline import: Fixed importing of DeepLabCut output data.
Data Export Bug Fixes:
- Changed video export to improve compatibility with some 3rd-party software. Fixed bug where spline ultrasound import could go to video, and vice-versa.
- Fixed "Make Movie" not respecting your selection of framerate: you should now be able to export files in 25Hz again.
- Fixed "Make Movie" sometimes incorrectly loading recordings.
- Fixed a crash that could happen if you tried to export files twice in quick succession.
- Fixed a crash that could occur if you tried to export a filename as its prompt with a really long prompt.
- Fixed a problem preventing export of Annotation regions as movies, eg. export each Annotation region of a recording as an individual video file.
- Fixed crash on trying to export annotation-dependent data without selecting annotations.
- Fixed the export of multiple images from a single Annotation region or recording. Fixed a small bug where the wrong checkbox determined if you added splines to an exported video or ultrasound recording.
Other Bug Fixes:
- Adding and deleting keyframes now processes a lot faster.
- Fixed a bug that could cause old projects to remain at large file size on your hard-drive even after you deleted data inside them.
- Fixed a bug where copying prompt-groups could accidentally inflate the file-size of the project on your hard-drive.
- Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when calculating Analysis Values.
- Fixed a problem where adding a spline from a user-made template could unintentionally overwrite other splines in a recording.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when calculating certain spline analysis values.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when recording or loading audio.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when removing data from a project.
- Fixed spline lists and drop-down selections of splines not showing all the right splines.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.05) 246Mb [Released 20 August 2021]
219_05 Bug fixes and new features:
Improved - Speed of loading large projects, opening edit splines dialogue and changing task windows .
Improved - Ultrasound image quality.
New - Image bilateral filter for smoothing speckle. This only affects appearance and not the underlying raw data.
Fixed - Occasional divide-by-zero crash when runing edge detection.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.04) 246Mb [Released 13 April 2021]
219_04 Bug fixes and new features:
Fixed - bug that caused crash when deleting client.
Fixed - unwanted refresh of analysis values when simply moving cursor.
Added - New maths values templates for 2D tangential velocity and 1D smoothing and velocity.
Fixed - bug where maths value were not updated unless editor exited then entered again and recalculated.
Fixed - bug that caused mfcc spectrogram to crash the application.
Improved - Hyoid/mandible tracking sped up significantly.
New - Spline importing in csv format (as produced by deeplabcut).
New - Spline export and import in *.spl fornmat added for the purpose of sharing work by several investigators on a single database. If one person adds splines, these can be added to other people's copy of the same database.
Improved - Multiselect checkboxes now show when users may want to select many files or analysis values for processing.
New - Art ultrasound system interface included ( some echoB & Micro& Art setup paramters added).Options for higher line density provided but not recommended as it reduces frame rate with no image processing benefit.
New - when creating a new fiducial or 2D spline the scale is now set to the mm/pixel scale for the ultrasonic data.
Upgrade to this revision to take fix the above mentioned bugs.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.03) 246Mb [Released 11 December 2020]
219_03 Bug fixes and new features:
Bug copying GGSplines from one project to another fixed.
When exporting textgrids it is now possible to export only the filtered annotations rather than all annotations. A new option to not export unlabelled regions as blank segment tiers in the textgrid file makes it easier to export selected labels from one AAA project and copy them into another AAA project. This should be used in preference to the export/import annotations option which is now largely obsolete.
Publisher now remembers the size of the dialogue in the *.pub file, making it possible to recreate the same size bitmap for several plots. Also when resizing the dialogue manually the numerical size of the bitmap is displayed while the size changes making it possible to set it to a specific size.
AAA now calculates mel scaled cepstral coefficients (MFCCs). These can be plotted and exported using data export. It also calculates the root mean square (rms) difference of a range of MFCC coefficients over a time period of 512 audio samples.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.02) 246Mb [Released 18 November 2020]
219_02 Bug fixes:
BAtch synchronisation of video and batch synchronisation of ultrasonic data failed under 219.01. This is fixed.
The Export File dialogue was too big to view on a display with a mderate or low screen resolution. This dialogue has been paginated to reduce its size.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.01) 246Mb [Released 23 August 2020]
219_01 New features and bug fixes:
Publisher dialogue - resizing made faster and easier using grab frame.
Major reorganisation of Edit Splines dialogue. Now includes hyoid and mandible tracking and an option to automatically set the confidence levels to zero beyond the hyoid and mandible shadows. The Roof spline can now be manually adjusted even if the keyframe is not selected.
New analysis values have been added. A set of spline "shape" measures (DEI, TCPI, LOCa-i, TF1, TF2,TF3: published by N. Zharkova et al; Curve degree, curve position: published by Menard et al; number of inflections NINFL: published by Preston et al) These values can be plotted and exported. Also a new set of measures based on raw ultrasonic data. a) probe direction measure where positive values indicate tongue tip pointing to right. A pixel difference measure which can be used to identify time points where structures within the image change.
Installer for new Windows 10 driver. (Will avoid errors when acquiring video using dfg2USB video capture card).IMPORTANT
New video tutorials can be found here here covering these new features.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V218.04) 246Mb [Released 20 December 2019]
218_04 New features and bug fixes:
Bug fix de-interlacing ( introduced in earlier version 218) IMPORTANT.
Bug Fix export data of video and images (not displaying de-interlaced images correctly).
Exported avi files now have an accurate frame rate specified in header (previously the period was approximated to the nearest ms).
Installer for new Windows 10 driver. (Will avoid errors when acquiring video using dfg2USB video capture card).IMPORTANT
Carstens AG501 acquisition made more robust.
It is strongly recommended to upgrade to this revision.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.02) 246Mb [Released 18 November 2020]
219_02 Bug fixes:
BAtch synchronisation of video and batch synchronisation of ultrasonic data failed under 219.01. This is fixed.
The Export File dialogue was too big to view on a display with a mderate or low screen resolution. This dialogue has been paginated to reduce its size.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V219.01) 246Mb [Released 23 August 2020]
219_01 New features and bug fixes:
Publisher dialogue - resizing made faster and easier using grab frame.
Major reorganisation of Edit Splines dialogue. Now includes hyoid and mandible tracking and an option to automatically set the confidence levels to zero beyond the hyoid and mandible shadows. The Roof spline can now be manually adjusted even if the keyframe is not selected.
New analysis values have been added. A set of spline "shape" measures (DEI, TCPI, LOCa-i, TF1, TF2,TF3: published by N. Zharkova et al; Curve degree, curve position: published by Menard et al; number of inflections NINFL: published by Preston et al) These values can be plotted and exported. Also a new set of measures based on raw ultrasonic data. a) probe direction measure where positive values indicate tongue tip pointing to right. A pixel difference measure which can be used to identify time points where structures within the image change.
Installer for new Windows 10 driver. (Will avoid errors when acquiring video using dfg2USB video capture card).IMPORTANT
New video tutorials can be found here here covering these new features.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V218.04) 246Mb [Released 20 December 2019]
218_04 New features and bug fixes:
Bug fix de-interlacing ( introduced in earlier version 218) IMPORTANT.
Bug Fix export data of video and images (not displaying de-interlaced images correctly).
Exported avi files now have an accurate frame rate specified in header (previously the period was approximated to the nearest ms).
Installer for new Windows 10 driver. (Will avoid errors when acquiring video using dfg2USB video capture card).IMPORTANT
Carstens AG501 acquisition made more robust.
It is strongly recommended to upgrade to this revision.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V218.04) 246Mb [Released 20 December 2019]
218_04 New features and bug fixes:
Bug fix de-interlacing ( introduced in earlier version 218) IMPORTANT.
Bug Fix export data of video and images (not displaying de-interlaced images correctly).
Exported avi files now have an accurate frame rate specified in header (previously the period was approximated to the nearest ms).
Installer for new Windows 10 driver. (Will avoid errors when acquiring video using dfg2USB video capture card).IMPORTANT
Carstens AG501 acquisition made more robust.
It is strongly recommended to upgrade to this revision.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V218.03) 246Mb [Released 30 May 2019]
218_03 New features and bug fixes:
Ability to record more than 15 seconds of ultrasonic data.
Ability to record long video recordings (e.g. ultrasound recorded on Aloka, Sonosite etc).
Much faster saving time for continuous recording (direct-to-disk) mode ( an hour long recording no longer takes an hour to save).
Ability to undo incorrectly synced continuous recordings.
Ability to increase the number of buffers when recording audio at 96kHz so as to avoid dropouts.
Vocal tract carving tool now available. It quickly estimates extrema of tongue movement, effectively calculating the palate position without needing a swallow.
Ability to use 2D spline templates in batch spline processing.
Ability to import short format textgrids (filetype must be defined as short).
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.10) 192Mb [Released 29 November 2018]
217_10 New features and bug fixes:
Fixes bug that potentially produces "integer overflow" error and problems reading and writing AAA.ini file
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.09) 192Mb [Released 16 November 2018]
217_09 New features and bug fixes:
Minor changes: Clicking menu entry for Publisher and Spline workspace restores the dialogue if minimised. Radio button now used to select whether files are exported as they are recorded.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.08) 192Mb [Released 29 October 2018]
217_08 New features and bug fixes:
Export files: Bug fixed in export of wav files and video files derived from vide and ultrasonic data. If exported files had different parameters to currently selected wav file (or audio setup if no recording loaded) then the duration or channel could be incorrect. New feature to use prompt as filestem and to allow multiselect on files for export. Checkbox in Export files can be set to export files at the time of recording. Warning: if this is unintentionally left on then the recording process may be slowed down and disk space used up unneccesarily.
Prompts: Square brackets with a number contained can be placed at the end of a prompt to define the automatic stop time on a prompt by prompt basis.
Spline fitting: Bug fixed in Batch spline fitting that caused range check error.
Analysis values: New options to create analysis values for x/y co-ordinates of 2D spline knots
Copy bitmap: crash after copy bitmap fixed. Copied bitmap now heeds ShowSpline status.
Project: Bug. Delete client works again.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.06) 192Mb [Released 30 May2018]
217_06 New features:
Serious bug fix: Some sound cards on some computers (including focusrite scarlett solo on some computers) generated significant lag in starting recording audio. This lag could produce about 50ms of silence at the start of the audio recording as well as the delay ( which could be up to a second) before the audio acquisition started. The result was gross and random misalignment of ultrasonic and audio data. A minor bug fix to remove a debug widow (introduced in the previous revision) which was obscuring the ultrasonic sync settings. A performance change, to reduce the delay between the audio starting and the ultrasonic data recording and to better align the beep with the start of ultrasonic recording. Bug fix: "Hot swap" of ultrasonic unit and/or probe was not working after previous release.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.05) 192Mb [Released 05 April 2018]
217_05 New features:
Serious bug fix: On fast new PCs event-messaging was fast enough to generate recursive calls resulting in a range of unpredictable and serious errors including loss of audio/ultrasound synchronisation and in extreme cases crashing the computer. These loops exist in older versions of the software going back to at least version 216. A minor bug fix in the calculation of EPG anteriority and centrality measures to eliminate the possibility of divide by zero errors. A bug fix where a beep was not being produced when Adlink AtoD card was used and the video window was present in the display. This meant that the synchbrightup was not being triggered.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.04) 192Mb [Released 19 January 2018]
217_04 New features:
Batch splining of ultrasonic data pays attention to brightness as well as quality of edge. Bug fix: COM port selection failing. EPG manual realignment updated to make this easier. Bug fix: beep not played when video window visible.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V217.03) 192Mb [Released 11 August 2017]
217_03 New features:
Improved performance of batch splining of ultrasonic data. Brightness and contrast controls for Micro/EchoB simplified and improved.
217_02 New features:
More Micro probes added. 100x faster batch splining of ultrasonic data. Easier loading of external promptlists. Ultrasonic freeze function now operated by a button. Numerous bugs that appeared in 217_01 have been fixed.
Major Revision 217 New features:
Handles new Micro ultrasound system. Ultrasonic setup dialogue now separated into Ultrasonix and EchoB/Micro setups plus a third separate dialogue that controls display parameters;
Can "hot swap" EchoB or Micro system probes and scanners
New overlay graphics
v216.16 (Recommended and Essential for recording EchoB data) NOTE: Once a project has been opened and changed in this version it may not be viewable in older versions.
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V216) 109Mb
New features:
EchoB recording and analysis;
AG501 phi and theta values accessable as analysis values
Improved interface for recalculating stored mathematical analysis values ( in version 215, recalculation is time consuming and unreliable)
- V216.03 Available EPG COM ports increased from 20 to 40
- V216.04 Bug fix allows video and EchoB to be recorded simultaneously. Data Export function now includes option for image bitmaps to be exported for selected time points. Startup error messgage indicating promptlist missing now only appears once.
- V216.05 Bug fix - Program crashes occasionally when recording EchoB data. EchoB probe frequency now shows correctly in dialogue. Bug producing error when copying client data to another project now fixed. Improvements: Automatic EchoB freeze after X minutes defined in dialogue and option to freeze unfreeze by clicking on display. New features: Export ultrasonic video or ultrasonic image frames or audio wav files for labelled regions using data export.
- V216.07 Bug fix - File missing error when exporting data from project that has been moved from its original location. Now looks for last *.avl file used in the current project directory. *.avl file contains both the export settings and the analysis values settings so that there is no mismatch trying to export values that don't exist. Bug fix - importing textgrids: AAA was prompting for confirmation for every file even though the "All" option was selected"
- V216.10 Bug fix - Analysis values. Fan Spline Distance A-B was scaled incorrectly. Bug Fix - EchoB automatic live scan freeze was affecting the display of recorded ultrasonic images. Improvement - Recent versions of AAA have copied the promptlists and associated media files automatically from the current project to a newly created or appended project. When carrying out multiple appending operations this was resulting in an accumulation of unnecessary prompts in the target project. Copying Prompts is now optional. The EchoB contrast and brightness control under the "ultrasonic settings..." dialogue now adjusts the appearance of the stored recording interactively ( as well as the live recording.
- V216.11 New Batch splining option in "Edit Splines" dialogue allows all recordings in session to be splined (overnight if necessary) with one click. New "make movie" dialogue to allow more freedom to layout videos for inclusion in presentations. Extra EMA parameters (theta, phi rms extra) now available as analysis values. EPG analysis values added ( anteriority centrality posteriority)
- V216.12 Improved batch spline tracking. Bugs fixed and high frame rate option added in Make moovie dialogue. Export spline from workspace now in matrix format with each x/y pair on a separate line.
- V216.13 Bug where Comm port not recognised on startup,fixed. Bug with "Unable to wrtite" message when trying to export data, fixed. Echo B frame averaging can be switched on in data review mode. Edge detection pays attention to the averaged image when averaging is ON. Error importing some encoded AVI files, fixed. Export data settings retained for each project.
- V216.14 the label "new" is no longer inserted as a defasult annotation. This removes the need to delete it before adding the desired annotation. Export files option to export Ultrasonic data as AVI video now has video size options. Note: Due to limitations of Microsoft "video for Windows" the sample period is approximated to the nearest whole millisecond. For high frame rates this leads to a significant error. To fix this error, note the actual frame rate and use virtualDub or another video editor to regenerate the video with the corrected video frame rate. Bug that results in annotations sometimes not being visible is fixed.
- V216.15 the label "new" is now picked up from the first line of the hotlist. A new default hotlist is included in the installation with a blank first entry so the effect is identical to the previous release. To save time if inserting the same annotation to multiple timepoints, add the annotation data to thge first item of the hotlist and it will become the default when the "add" button is clicked. Annotations can now be searched for using regular expressions. e.g. To find empty labels use expression ^$ To find curly open bracket use expression \{ .
- V216.16 Now allows EMA and audio to be imported from MochaTimit data (annotations , EPG and laryngograph will follow in a later revision). MochaTimit consists of 480 TIMIT sentences read by several speakers with simultaneous audio and EMA of tongue, lips and velum that can be freely downloaded from here.
215
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) (download V215) 31.2Mb
- V215.03 New memory manager to try to halt "Out of memory" messages due to memory fragmentation after loading and unloading large video files. Database recovery tool bugfixes.
- V215.04 Create project and append project now copies all prompts, prompt images, audio and video from the current project to the destination project.
- V215.06 Fix bug when exporting a single annotation in PRAAT textgerid format the start of the annotation was not visible in PRAAT.
- V215.07 Fix bug introduced in 215.04 that copied the demo status from the current project when creating a new project thus making it impossible to record
- V215.08 Number of available COM ports increased from 20 to 40. Ultrasonix now has a delay option to allow compatibility with recording WinEPG (tone sync method)
Articulate Assistant is an EPG application for Recording, Client assessment, Analysis and Visual feedback
Articulate Assistant (download V120) 5Mb
Released 03.07.2018
New: Sync option added to specify the audio channel with sync signal. New: EPG frame rate can be adjusted in steps of 100,000th of a second. Set to 0 for 100Hz or set to 100,000 for 200Hz. Can be adjusted to compensate for soundcard inaccuracy if not recording at nominal rate.
Articulate Assistant (download V118) 7.3Mb
Note: Fully functional. If you have a usb license key (dongle) for the application then you can record and review your own data. Otherwise you are restricted to demonstration data.
This is the software application that is provided with WinEPG. Check your version (using the Help| About menu in your copy of Articulate Assistant) and if it is older than the version above you can download and upgrade for free.
Articulate assistant can also be used on it's own to analyse EPG data.
Tutorial videos are gradually being recorded and made available at this YouTube channel.
Articulate Instruments YouTube channel
Articulate Assistant Advanced (AAA) Tutorials
Tutorial 1: Installing AAA
How to install AAA.
Tutorial 2: User interface basics
Interface basics including how to inspect and review data.
Tutorial 3: Annotations and splines
How to label your data and fit splines to ultrasonic data.
Tutorial 4: Exporting data
How to export data from AAA for analysis in other programs such as PRAAT or a statistical package like R.
Tutorial 5: The spline workspace
How to compare tongue curves from different segments or recordings.
Tutorial 6: Publisher and Analysis values dialogue
Create high quality graphics for journal publication including spectrograms, waveforms, and charts of analysis values.
Tutorial 7: Recording and visual feedback with ultrasonix or EchoB
Shows recording of ultrasound data from Ultrasonix system.
Tutorial 8: EPG and formant analysis values and publisher
Create new analysis values based on formants or EPG and then export them into publisher to create high quality figures.
Tutorial 9: Batch Processing splines
A batch function that allows every frame of every recording or annotated region to be splined with one click (overnight).
Tutorial 10: Design mode
Customise the task windows to your needs. Add or remove unwanted windows, resize windows or change the default task window on startup.
MOCHA TIMIT tools
EmaTools2 is a set of free Matlab macros authored by Noel Nguyen and Alan Wrench for viewing the MOCHA Timit multichannel articulatory data.ICPhS 2015 :Towards a 3D tongue model for parameterising ultrasound data (ppt)(pdf)
SMC 2017: A massless 3D tongue model and its relation to the lambda model (ppt)(pdf)
- R Utilities
We have not used ay of these tools and so cannot vouch for them.
R https://cran.r-project.org/
Rstudio https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download2/
Rticulate: Ultrasound Tongue Imaging in R (Stefano Coretta Manchester)(2016)
https://github.com/stefanocoretta/rticulate
This package provides two functions for importing UTI data from Articulate Assistant Advanced and plotting UTI data from any source.
ultRa (Richard Beare LaTrobe Australia) (2016)
An R package containing functions to manipulate speech ultrasound data obtained with Articulatory Instruments AAA software.
https://github.com/richardbeare/ultRa
SSANOVA with R tutorials (2016)
http://corpling.uis.georgetown.edu/shuoz/ssanova/index.php
Smoothing splines for measuring difference between two sets of splines. Paper by Lisa Davidson (2006) on this website .
North Carolina State University Phonology Lab (Jeff Mielke)
https://phon.wordpress.ncsu.edu/lab-manual/ultrasound-and-video/working-with-data/
tongue_ssanova.r amongst other scripts described in detail on this page. Includes polar version of SSANOVA more suited to tongue contour data.
PYTHON scripts
Tongue shape analysis metrics (Kathryn Dawson)
https://github.com/kdawson2/tshape_analysis
This script contains code for several shape analysis metrics designed to be used on contours taken from ultrasound images of the tongue. The analysis metrics are:
- Procrustes analysis
- Modified Curvature Index
- Fourier analysis of the tongue profile
UltraSuite Data and Tools (ULTRAX project)
http://www.ultrax-speech.org/ultrasuite
This is a repository for ultrasound child speech data stored in a similar format to that which can be exported from AAA. It includes python scripts for reading and displaying data held in this format.
UltraTrace ultrasound annotation tool (Jonathan Washington)
https://github.com/SwatPhonLab/UltraTrace
GUI for creating textgrid output based on *.wav or *.flac files and ultrasound tongue imaging data in DICOM or AAA *.ult format.
MATLAB
Ultramat (Thomas Hueber)
http://ultraspeech.com/web/index.php?page=ultramat
Implements the EigenTongue approach which is a statistical technique consisting in encoding an ultrasound frame by its projections onto a set of standard (tongue) configurations.
See also North Carolina State University Phonology Laboratory for MATLAB code (link in R section above)
GetContours developed by Mark Tiede at Haskins can be downloaded here.
https://github.com/mktiede/GetContours
SLURP (Cathy Laporte at Montreal) This tracker built on top of the GetContours MATLAB GUI uses particle filtering to track the tongue contour using a hand "seeded" frame.
https://github.com/cathylaporte/SLURP
Help sheets
Information for making plaster impressions (pdf) Going to the dentist (doc) Taking care of your EPG Palate (doc) & Palate wearing record form (doc) Customers who are logged in will see an extra link to Manuals, software, etc under the Support menu at the foot of the page. Customers who don't wish to register on this website may contact us by email for further information.
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