[Savannah-hackers] submission of The Aumilius Project - savannah.gnu.org

[kleffner]

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Matt Kleffner <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: gpl
Other License: 
Package: The Aumilius Project
System name: aumilius
Type: GNU

Description:
Request for hosting:



The Aumilius Project

GNU Free Software for Animated Music



License: GPL

Copyright: I would like to see this become a GNU project and I am also 
interested in signing over copyright to FSF. Is it harder to find developers to 
join projects if the project creator insists the developers sign over the 
copyright?



Primary goal: To enable creation of animated music, using free audio/video 
codecs, from midi files



Secondary goals:

To encourage Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike animations of public domain 
and ShareAlike music

To distribute some of the aforementioned files (does GNU have bandwidth 
available for this task? I will seek donated space elsewhere as well)

To point out complications of creating derivative works of non-free works



Platform: Python



Current state: v 0.1 (beta, spaghetti code)



Proof-of-concept animations and code at:

http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~kleffner/aumilius



Animation file names are listed below instructions



tar.gz of current code directory is

http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/~kleffner/aumilius/aumilius_0.1.tar.gz



One animation is not distributable - I have not yet obtained permission from 
the MIDI sequencer for others - please don't distribute these or publish this 
address



Instructions: download matching avi file and ogg file and run mplayer 
(free-codec-only debian version of mplayer is at marillat.free.fr)



Commands for playing available files:

mplayer mapleleafragall.avi -audiofile mapleleafragall.ogg

mplayer tocattaall.avi -audiofile tocattaall.ogg

mplayer ppantherall.avi -audiofile ppantherall.ogg

mplayer carolofbellsall.avi -audiofile carolofbellsall.ogg



If sync problems occur (I didn't notice any), expand the ogg file into a wav 
and use the wav file



TODO:

Code cleanup/reorganization, streamlining

Plug-in interface for animation styles (piano roll, helix)

Solve sync problems when audio encoded into video file

Create output files of smaller size

Improved copyright clips

Configuration of parameters through files

GUI

Inclusion of drum channel

Utilize pitch bend, volume midi events

Other Software Required:
Requirements: sox, timidity, oggenc, mplayer/mencoder (free codecs only), 
Python Imaging Library, piddlePIL

Also requires: mf2t (mf2tsrc.zip at http://archive.cs.uu.nl/pub/MIDI/PROGRAMS/ 
- I believe this is public domain software)

Other Comments:
I am a Ph.D. student in electrical engr. at the U. of Illinois, with 
programming experience and training in a variety of programming languages. I 
exclusively use Debian GNU/Linux on my computer, and I am committed to 
advancing the principles stated on the FSF's website.



A major obstacle to the animation quality is that the sounds are generated from 
MIDI files. This also limits the amount of music that can be animated to 
existing MIDI files. I will soon be requesting another hosted GNU project 
(working title - Aumius) which facilitates user-assisted wav to midi 
transcription. The Aumilius project will benefit from this because the midi 
transcription can be used to generate the animation and the animation can be 
paired with the original audio. I will use the GPL'd library at 
http://loris.sourceforge.net to display frequency information and the user will 
interactively decide what the notes are. (I have taken an electronic music 
class from a Loris co-creator, Lippold Haken, and I am familiar with his 
technique of finding time/frequency-varying tones in sound) Many proprietary 
programs claim to do this automatically, but the creators are at least 
partially lying - this problem is not even close to being solved. At least one 
proprietary program takes the "assisted" approach, but I cannot seem to find it 
anymore. There is undoubtedly a patent minefield relating to this area, as in 
the U.S. it is simple to think "wouldn't it be neat if" about an idea and 
patent it, having no idea how to implement it. I am not familiar with such 
patents in this area, but this part of the reason I would sign over the 
copyright to this as well. I have also been interested in this problem and 
animating music since I was much younger and I will be committed to seeing both 
of these projects succeed - whether I am doing most of the coding or others 
are. Note that I am not working on any other free software projects at this 
time. I can provide more details on this to-be-requested project if necessary; 
please respond with any preliminary thoughts on this second project if possible.



Some sharealike mp3 music that I am interested in utilizing for the Aumilius 
Project is available at http://www.magnatune.com/



I am registering the sites www.aumilius.org and www.aumius.org - would the FSF 
kindly allow me to directly point to these addresses to the GNU project pages 
if the projects are approved?


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