RE: mathml to plain text | audio?

Hi Neil. 

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Neil Soiffer

    I don't want to appear contradictory, but I strongly 
    disagree with the statement that MathML is not suitable for 
    speech.
I hope I didn't give that impression. I wanted to imply that it 
is not easy, not straightforward. I dislike chasing goals
that I think cannot be reached :-)
  

    A proof of this is already available in 
    MathPlayer.  MathPlayer is a free download for displaying 
    MathML in IE.  In version 2.0, which was released a few 
    months ago, Design Science included a demonstration of 
    MathML-to-speech technology.

Yes, I listened to it yesterday. 

    Design Science worked with major screen reader vendors so 
    that recent releases of JAWS, Window-Eyes, and HAL all work 
    seamlessly with MathPlayer to read MathML -- both 
    presentation and content MathML.  For those not using a 
    screen reader, there is a "Speak Expression" right button 
    menu item that can be used to speak the MathML.

Yes, I liked it.

    
    We are working with other vendors to incorporate 
    synchronized speech/highlighting into high-end magnifiers 
    that use speech and learning disability tools.

The daisy program has a not dissimilar approach; for a pc based reading
tool, the text / speech is synchronised by SMIL. It also plays on
a standalone player, without the visual aspect.
  I'm looking for a tool such as yours to generate the audio prior
to building the books on CD for customer delivery.
    
    This work was funded in part by a grant from the NSF, and 
    we fully understand that the speech output can and should 
    be improved from the what is part of MathPlayer 2.0.  We 
    also understand that navigation of large expressions and 
    generation of various braille math codes such as Nemeth 
    code are important and we are working on these aspects of 
    the project.

Great. The key part there is the separation of the text generation
from the synthesis, to allow higher quality voices to be used?

Also the intermediate form (whatever that might be) to [name your
braille math code] would be ideal as an XSLT transform, to enable
other countries to use their own math braille code, since few
real standards exist. Is that the architecture you are working on?
  


    If you have any questions or suggestions for improvement 
    after trying out MathPlayer, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for the pointers Neil.
  I learned today that a Netherlands group has started a not dissimilar
project.
regards DaveP

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Received on Wednesday, 2 June 2004 03:28:24 UTC