Getting Started

This walkthrough will take you through a clean install of the code, including optional dependencies and trying your first sonification

Installation

the Strauss code can be downloaded from GitHub at the repository url

Using git make a copy of the STRAUSS repository via SSH,

git clone git@github.com:james-trayford/strauss.git strauss

or HTTPS if you don’t have SSH keys set up,

git clone https://github.com/james-trayford/strauss.git strauss

throughout the documentation, I will refer to this as the strauss repo or code directory.

if you just want to use the code, STRAUSS may then be installed using pip, as

cd strauss
pip install .

If you want to develop the code, you can instead use

pip install -e .

where the -e option allows a local install, such that you can modify and run the source code on the fly without needing to reinstall each time.

Example jupyter notebooks

There are a number of example applications of Strauss in the example subdirectory of the strauss repo. These are in Python Notebook (.ipynb) format for an interactive, step-by-step .

In order to run the exampes, first ensure that jupyter is installed on your system. These were developed in jupyter-lab, which can also be installed using pip, as.

pip install jupyterlab

Then, running jupyter-lab in the strauss should initiate the jupyter-lab server and open a browser window. Navigate to the examples directory within the jupyter-lab navigation plane, from which a number of examples can be opened and run interactively.

Running some examples

From the jupyter-lab interface, a good starting point is the SonifyingData1D.ipynb notebook. demonstrating various method of representing a single 1D dataset sonically, using a single Object-type source representation. The code and instruction cells provide a step-by-step gude to setting up, rendering and saving a sonification with Strauss.

For a multivariate Event-type sonification, the StarsAppearing.ipynb notebook provides a step-by-step example, and demonstrates realistic stereo imaging for panoramic data. The output from this example was used in the *Audible Universe* 2021 planetarium show.

For a multivariate, multi-source example using an Object-type source representation, see …

In addition to the above-mentioned examples, there are a number of other notebooks, each representing the diverse applications and uses of the Strauss code to sonify data in different ways. A more detailed overview of the example notebooks can be found in Examples.