On the Edge: Statistics & Computing
Visualizing data is a well-established statistical technique, and most statistical software packages have many tools for this kind of analysis, and current hardware and software on workstations and PC's are quite capable of producing sound with very high quality.
Abstract
Visualizing data is a well-established statistical technique, and most statistical software packages have many tools for this kind of analysis.This became possible because high-qualitygraphics devices (high-resolution screens and printers) are widely available now. Current hardware and software on workstations and PC's are also quite capable of producing sound with veryhigh quality.Therefore, we have the option of producing sound from data, or sonifying our data. To better understand what can be done with respect to statistical tasks, we first need to know the different concepts for supporting sound on computers. Basically, there are two technologies, raw wave data and musical instrument digital interface (MIDI, pronounced "middy"). Playing wave data on a computer is equivalent to playing a CD on a CD player. All the information about the sound is in the data file. Oversimplifying, one might say that the file contains a protocol of the deviations of the loudspeaker membrane from its rest position. The sampling rate for this protocol is in the kHz (kilohertz) range, and typically (for CD quality) it is 44. I kHz. MIDI conceptually is radically different. Originally,MIDI was designed for controlling electronic musical instruments (like synthesizers) in real time, and the MIDI specifications define commands for starting a sound of a given pitch or ending a sound of a given pitch. The command also contains vol-