Raven Exhibit Software
Version 1.4
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Developed by the Bioacoustics Research Program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for the Visitors Center of the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity, the Raven Exhibit is an interactive software application that allows visitors to explore sounds by visualizing them using spectrographic analysis. The software is referred to as Raven Exhibit because its underlying technology is identical to that used in Raven, the sound analysis research software developed at the Lab of Ornithology.
Those people who have seen Raven Pro and Raven Lite are already familiar with the two images of sound that are used in this exhibit, waveforms and spectrograms. A waveform shows how the amplitude, or loudness, of the sound varies over time. Taller waveforms represent louder sounds.
A sound spectrogram shows how the frequency, or pitch, of a sound varies over time. As in musical notation, the horizontal dimension corresponds to time (reading from left to right), and the vertical dimension corresponds to frequency (or pitch), with higher sounds shown higher on the display. The relative power at any particular time and frequency is indicated by the color of the spectrogram at that point.
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Raven Exhibit brings these concepts to visitors using a user interface design that is both simple and powerful. Visitors can choose from a wide range of sounds including birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and even their own voices. With each sound, they get one or more photographs of the species that created the sound, a description of the sound, and some natural history about the animal. The current exhibit in the Johnson Center is set up to display sound data on one screen, and to display photos and natural history on a second screen. The image below comes from the interactive sound exploration part of the exhibit. Note that views, background colors, and analysis colors are customizable.
The software has been written to allow for display on two 19” or 20” standard monitors located next to each other (as shown above) or on one monitor, but depending on the size of the single monitor, the users may need to scroll through the text to read it all. A 24” widescreen monitor has worked for us in the single screen setup. The image below shows the single screen setup, which has a slightly different button arrangement, as well as the new feature that allows multiple photographs to be included per species.
The example below is demonstration mode, where sounds are randomly selected to play, and where the sound images scroll past the user.
The demo mode (labeled “WATCH DEMO” in the interface) serves as a way to draw visitors to the exhibit without forcing them to do anything except watch. Once they see how it works, they are more likely to sit down and explore.
Modes of Operation
The exhibit has three main modes of operation:
1. Demonstration mode, described above, allows users to just watch the sounds scroll by as they play. This is a way to attract visitors.
2. Exploration mode, which is the fully interactive mode, allows users to explore sounds of their own choosing, to record their voices, and to compare their voice to prerecorded sounds.
3. Help mode gives instructions on how to use the exhibit. This mode is divided into two separate buttons (READ INSTRUCTIONS and LEARN MORE) when the exhibit is configured with a single screen.
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Actions within Exploration Mode
Each action within exploration mode (labeled as “EXPLORE SOUNDS” in the interface) is presented to the end user as a button. Below is a list of available actions, along with their descriptions from the help panels.
Click the CHOOSE SOUND button to see a list of categories of sounds (like "Birds" or "Marine Mammals"). Move the mouse over the name of a category to see a list of sounds in that category. Click on one of those sounds to display the waveform and spectrogram views of the sound.
Click the RECORD button to start recording from the microphone. While you're recording, the program will display waveform and spectrogram views that move across the screen from right to left. The right edge of the display shows the sound you're making now.
Click the PLAY button to start playing the visible or selected part of the sound. A vertical blue play marker will move from left to right across the display, indicating which part of the sound is currently playing.
Click the REVERSE PLAY button to start playing the visible or selected part of the sound in reverse. A vertical blue play marker will move from right to left across the display, indicating which part of the sound is currently playing. Using this feature can be especially fun when listening to your recorded voice.
Click the SET PLAY SPEED button to set the playback speed of the sound. To speed up the sound, pick 2X, 4X, or 10X. To slow down the sound, pick 1/2, 1/4, or 1/10.
Speeding up a sound raises the pitch of the sound. Slowing down a sound lowers the pitch.
Click the ZOOM IN and ZOOM OUT buttons to zoom in and out on the time axis and see a shorter or longer portion of the sound in more detail.
When the exhibit if used with a single monitor, there are two additional buttons used, one to hide the sound views and one to hide the information (photo and natural history text). These buttons allow users to view the sound views, photo, and text in more detail if they
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Click the COMPARE TWO SOUNDS button to view two sound windows. You can view a different sound in each window. This button is shown when only a single window is displayed. Note that when viewing two sound windows, there is less room on the screen for information about the sound. To allow more room for sound information, view one sound at a time. Use this view to compare your voice to that of an animal.
By pressing the READ INSTRUCTIONS button, visitors are taken to the help panel that shows contextual help for each of the buttons by moving the mouse over each button.
Customizable Exhibit
The list of sounds that is available to users is completely configurable. A zoo may want a different set of sounds than an aquarium, and also a different set of sounds than the Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity. Sounds can be grouped by category to create a better visitor experience. Most of the sounds used in the exhibit were obtained from the Macaulay Library, a program within the Lab of Ornithology, and are available for
licensing. While sounds, photos, and descriptive information can be licensed from the Lab of Ornithology, the software will operate using sounds recorded at the target institution as well.
Raven Exhibit has been created in such a way as to allow for easy customization for different needs. To give people an idea of the software’s flexibility, we’ve created ten starter packs of 25 sounds each. These are meant to be a quick way to get started with Raven Exhibit and show people its capabilities. Customers can start with one of these packs and add custom sounds for their specific location, they can work with us to build a custom exhibit from scratch, or they can just license the exhibit software and add their own sound, image, and natural history content. The bird starter packs are regional, with the species selection determined by checking eBird.org for the 25 or 50 most common species in a region based on checklists submitted by birders nationwide.
Starter packs:
• Birds of the Northeast • Birds of the Southeast • Birds of the Upper Midwest • Birds of the Great Plains • Birds of Texas
• Birds of the Desert Southwest • Birds of the Mountain States • Birds of the Pacific Northwest • Birds of California
• Birds of Alaska
• Sounds of the Wild (amphibians, reptiles, and insects of the US; marine
mammals; and land mammals of the US and Africa)
In addition to the full setup, you can also set it up as just a real-time spectrogram to allow visitors to explore sound using their voices, as shown below. This version of the exhibit software is part of the Wild Music traveling exhibition.
Anyone interested in licensing the software, sounds, photos, or text used in the exhibit, or the entire exhibit, should contact Ashakur Rahaman ([email protected]) or
