annotate README @ 50:b907557b2fb9

* Add a structure for API versioning
author cannam
date Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:48:17 +0000
parents ce61ad9b9159
children 2403ae53b8a5
rev   line source
cannam@14 1
cannam@14 2 Vamp
cannam@14 3 ====
cannam@14 4
cannam@14 5 An API for audio analysis and feature extraction plugins.
cannam@14 6
cannam@44 7 http://www.vamp-plugins.org/
cannam@44 8
cannam@14 9 Vamp is an API for C and C++ plugins that process sampled audio data
cannam@18 10 to produce descriptive output (measurements or semantic observations).
cannam@14 11
cannam@14 12 The principal differences between Vamp and a real-time audio
cannam@14 13 processing plugin system such as VST are:
cannam@14 14
cannam@14 15 * Vamp plugins may output complex multidimensional data with labels.
cannam@14 16 As a consequence, they are likely to work best when the output
cannam@14 17 data has a much lower sampling rate than the input. (This also
cannam@14 18 means it is usually desirable to implement them in C++ using the
cannam@14 19 high-level base class provided rather than use the raw C API.)
cannam@14 20
cannam@14 21 * While Vamp plugins receive data block-by-block, they are not
cannam@14 22 required to return output immediately on receiving the input.
cannam@14 23 A Vamp plugin may be non-causal, preferring to store up data
cannam@14 24 based on its input until the end of a processing run and then
cannam@14 25 return all results at once.
cannam@14 26
cannam@14 27 * Vamp plugins have more control over their inputs than a typical
cannam@14 28 real-time processing plugin. For example, they can indicate to
cannam@18 29 the host their preferred processing block and step sizes, and these
cannam@18 30 may differ.
cannam@18 31
cannam@18 32 * Vamp plugins may ask to receive data in the frequency domain
cannam@18 33 instead of the time domain. The host takes the responsibility
cannam@18 34 for converting the input data using an FFT of windowed frames.
cannam@18 35 This simplifies plugins that do straightforward frequency-domain
cannam@18 36 processing and permits the host to cache frequency-domain data
cannam@18 37 when possible.
cannam@14 38
cannam@14 39 * A Vamp plugin is configured once before each processing run, and
cannam@14 40 receives no further parameter changes during use -- unlike real
cannam@14 41 time plugin APIs in which the input parameters may change at any
cannam@14 42 time. This also means that fundamental properties such as the
cannam@14 43 number of values per output or the preferred processing block
cannam@18 44 size may depend on the input parameters.
cannam@14 45
cannam@38 46 * Vamp plugins do not have to be able to run in real time.
cannam@38 47
cannam@14 48
cannam@14 49 About this SDK
cannam@14 50 ==============
cannam@14 51
cannam@14 52 This Software Development Kit contains the following:
cannam@14 53
cannam@14 54 * vamp/vamp.h
cannam@14 55
cannam@14 56 The formal C language plugin API for Vamp plugins.
cannam@14 57
cannam@14 58 A Vamp plugin is a dynamic library (.so, .dll or .dylib depending on
cannam@14 59 platform) exposing one C-linkage entry point (vampGetPluginDescriptor)
cannam@14 60 which returns data defined in the rest of this C header.
cannam@14 61
cannam@14 62 Although this is the official API for Vamp, we don't recommend that
cannam@14 63 you program directly to it. The C++ abstraction in the SDK directory
cannam@18 64 (below) is likely to be preferable for most purposes, and is better
cannam@14 65 documented.
cannam@14 66
cannam@14 67 * vamp-sdk
cannam@14 68
cannam@14 69 C++ classes for straightforwardly implementing Vamp plugins and hosts.
cannam@18 70
cannam@18 71 Plugins should subclass Vamp::Plugin and then use a
cannam@18 72 Vamp::PluginAdapter to expose the correct C API for the plugin. Read
cannam@18 73 vamp-sdk/PluginBase.h and Plugin.h for code documentation.
cannam@18 74
cannam@14 75 Hosts may use the Vamp::PluginHostAdapter to convert the loaded
cannam@14 76 plugin's C API back into a Vamp::Plugin object.
cannam@14 77
cannam@14 78 * examples
cannam@14 79
cannam@14 80 Example plugins implemented using the C++ classes. ZeroCrossing
cannam@14 81 calculates the positions and density of zero-crossing points in an
cannam@35 82 audio waveform. SpectralCentroid calculates the centre of gravity of
cannam@14 83 the frequency domain representation of each block of audio.
cannam@35 84 PercussionOnsetDetector estimates the locations of percussive onsets
cannam@35 85 using a simple method described in "Drum Source Separation using
cannam@35 86 Percussive Feature Detection and Spectral Modulation" by Dan Barry,
cannam@35 87 Derry Fitzgerald, Eugene Coyle and Bob Lawlor, ISSC 2005.
cannam@14 88
cannam@14 89 * host
cannam@14 90
cannam@16 91 A simple command-line Vamp host, capable of loading a plugin and using
cannam@16 92 it to process a complete audio file, with its default parameters.
cannam@16 93 Requires libsndfile.
cannam@14 94
cannam@40 95
cannam@40 96 Plugin Lookup and Categorisation
cannam@40 97 ================================
cannam@40 98
cannam@40 99 The Vamp API does not officially specify how to load plugin libraries
cannam@40 100 or where to find them. However, the SDK does include a function
cannam@40 101 (Vamp::PluginHostAdapter::getPluginPath()) that returns a recommended
cannam@40 102 directory search path that hosts may use for plugin libraries.
cannam@40 103
cannam@40 104 Our suggestion for a host is to search each directory in this path for
cannam@40 105 .DLL (on Windows), .so (on Linux, Solaris, BSD etc) or .dylib (on
cannam@40 106 OS/X) files, then to load each one and perform a dynamic name lookup
cannam@40 107 on the vampGetPluginDescriptor function to enumerate the plugins in
cannam@40 108 the library. The example host has some code that may help, but this
cannam@40 109 operation will necessarily be system-dependent.
cannam@40 110
cannam@40 111 Vamp also has an informal convention for sorting plugins into
cannam@40 112 functional categories. In addition to the library file itself, a
cannam@40 113 plugin library may install a category file with the same name as the
cannam@40 114 library but .cat extension. The existence and format of this file are
cannam@40 115 not specified by the Vamp API, but by convention the file may contain
cannam@40 116 lines of the format
cannam@40 117
cannam@40 118 vamp:pluginlibrary:pluginname::General Category > Specific Category
cannam@40 119
cannam@40 120 which a host may read and use to assign plugins a location within a
cannam@40 121 category tree for display to the user. The expectation is that
cannam@40 122 advanced users may also choose to set up their own preferred category
cannam@40 123 trees, which is why this information is not queried as part of the
cannam@40 124 Vamp API itself.
cannam@32 125
cannam@14 126
cannam@42 127 Building and Installing the SDK and Examples
cannam@42 128 ============================================
cannam@14 129
cannam@42 130 To build the SDK, the simple host, and the example plugins, edit the
cannam@42 131 Makefile to suit your platform according to the comments in it, then
cannam@42 132 run "make".
cannam@42 133
cannam@42 134 Installing the example plugins so that they can be found by other Vamp
cannam@42 135 hosts depends on your platform:
cannam@42 136
cannam@44 137 * Windows: copy the files
cannam@44 138 examples/vamp-example-plugins.dll
cannam@44 139 examples/vamp-example-plugins.cat
cannam@44 140 to
cannam@44 141 C:\Program Files\Vamp Plugins
cannam@42 142
cannam@44 143 * Linux: copy the files
cannam@44 144 examples/vamp-example-plugins.so
cannam@44 145 examples/vamp-example-plugins.cat
cannam@44 146 to
cannam@44 147 /usr/local/lib/vamp/
cannam@42 148
cannam@44 149 * OS/X: copy the files
cannam@44 150 examples/vamp-example-plugins.dylib
cannam@44 151 examples/vamp-example-plugins.cat
cannam@44 152 to
cannam@44 153 /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Vamp
cannam@42 154
cannam@42 155 When building a plugin or host of your own using the SDK, you will
cannam@44 156 need to include the headers from the vamp-sdk directory; then when
cannam@44 157 linking your plugin or host, we suggest statically linking the SDK
cannam@44 158 code (in preference to distributing it alongside your program in DLL
cannam@44 159 form). An easy way to do this, if using a project-based build tool
cannam@42 160 such as Visual Studio or XCode, is simply to add the .cpp files in the
cannam@42 161 vamp-sdk directory to your project.
cannam@14 162
cannam@14 163
cannam@14 164 Licensing
cannam@14 165 =========
cannam@14 166
cannam@18 167 This plugin SDK is freely redistributable under a "new-style BSD"
cannam@42 168 licence. See the file COPYING for more details. In short, you may
cannam@42 169 modify and redistribute the SDK and example plugins within any
cannam@42 170 commercial or non-commercial, proprietary or open-source plugin or
cannam@42 171 application under almost any conditions, with no obligation to provide
cannam@42 172 source code, provided you retain the original copyright note.
cannam@14 173
cannam@14 174
cannam@14 175 See Also
cannam@14 176 ========
cannam@14 177
cannam@14 178 Sonic Visualiser, an interactive open-source graphical audio
cannam@14 179 inspection, analysis and visualisation tool supporting Vamp plugins.
cannam@35 180 http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/
cannam@14 181
cannam@14 182
cannam@44 183 Authors
cannam@44 184 =======
cannam@44 185
cannam@44 186 Vamp and the Vamp SDK were designed and made at the Centre for Digital
cannam@44 187 Music at Queen Mary, University of London. The SDK code was written
cannam@44 188 by Chris Cannam, copyright (c) 2005-2006 Chris Cannam. Mark Sandler
cannam@44 189 and Christian Landone provided ideas and direction, and Mark Levy, Dan
cannam@44 190 Stowell, Martin Gasser and Craig Sapp provided testing and other input
cannam@44 191 for the 1.0 API and SDK. The API reuses some ideas from several prior
cannam@44 192 plugin systems, notably DSSI (http://dssi.sourceforge.net) and FEAPI
cannam@44 193 (http://feapi.sourceforge.net).
cannam@44 194