Dictation Application using Sphinx4

Question

My requirements are similar to this question since the question is now 3 years old I am re-posting the question with information specific to mine, I want to create an application which takes a .wav (or any other standard audio file format) and converts it to text.

For Speech Recognition I have decided to use sphinx4, I am trying to enhance the Transcriber demo provided with sphinx. Its good but That only works for a specific Grammar (written in .gram and .gxml files).

EDIT To be able to use it with English ? I am trying to configure it with VoxForge_en_0.4. My config.XML file looks like:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!--
   Sphinx-4 Configuration file
-->

<!-- ******************************************************** -->
<!--  biship  configuration file                              -->
<!-- ******************************************************** -->

<config>        

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- frequently tuned properties                              -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 
    <property name="absoluteBeamWidth"  value="500"/>
    <property name="relativeBeamWidth"  value="1E-80"/>
    <property name="absoluteWordBeamWidth" value="20"/>
    <property name="relativeWordBeamWidth" value="1E-60"/>
    <property name="wordInsertionProbability" value="1E-16"/>
    <property name="languageWeight" value="7.0"/>
    <property name="silenceInsertionProbability" value=".1"/>
    <property name="frontend" value="epFrontEnd"/>
    <property name="recognizer" value="recognizer"/>
    <property name="showCreations" value="false"/>


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- word recognizer configuration                            -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 

    <component name="recognizer" 
                          type="edu.cmu.sphinx.recognizer.Recognizer">
        <property name="decoder" value="decoder"/>
        <propertylist name="monitors">
            <item>accuracyTracker </item>
            <item>speedTracker </item>
            <item>memoryTracker </item>
            <item>recognizerMonitor </item>
        </propertylist>
    </component>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Decoder   configuration                              -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 

    <component name="decoder" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.Decoder">
        <property name="searchManager" value="wordPruningSearchManager"/>
        <property name="featureBlockSize" value="50"/>
    </component>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Search Manager                                       -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 

    <component name="wordPruningSearchManager" 
    type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.WordPruningBreadthFirstSearchManager">
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="linguist" value="lexTreeLinguist"/>
        <property name="pruner" value="trivialPruner"/>
        <property name="scorer" value="threadedScorer"/>
        <property name="activeListManager" value="activeListManager"/>
        <property name="growSkipInterval" value="0"/>
        <property name="checkStateOrder" value="false"/>
        <property name="buildWordLattice" value="true"/>
        <property name="acousticLookaheadFrames" value="1.7"/>
        <property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="${relativeBeamWidth}"/>
    </component>


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Active Lists                                         -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 

    <component name="activeListManager" 
             type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.SimpleActiveListManager">
        <propertylist name="activeListFactories">
            <item>standardActiveListFactory</item>
            <item>wordActiveListFactory</item>
            <item>wordActiveListFactory</item>
            <item>standardActiveListFactory</item>
            <item>standardActiveListFactory</item>
            <item>standardActiveListFactory</item>
        </propertylist>
    </component>

    <component name="standardActiveListFactory" 
             type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.PartitionActiveListFactory">
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="absoluteBeamWidth" value="${absoluteBeamWidth}"/>
        <property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="${relativeBeamWidth}"/>
    </component>

    <component name="wordActiveListFactory" 
             type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.PartitionActiveListFactory">
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="absoluteBeamWidth" value="${absoluteWordBeamWidth}"/>
        <property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="${relativeWordBeamWidth}"/>
    </component>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Pruner                                               -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 
    <component name="trivialPruner" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.pruner.SimplePruner"/>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- TheScorer                                                -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** --> 
    <component name="threadedScorer" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.scorer.ThreadedAcousticScorer">
        <property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
    </component>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The linguist  configuration                              -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->

    <component name="lexTreeLinguist" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.lextree.LexTreeLinguist">
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="acousticModel" value="wsj"/>
        <property name="languageModel" value="trigramModel"/>
        <property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
        <property name="addFillerWords" value="false"/>
        <property name="fillerInsertionProbability" value="1E-10"/>
        <property name="generateUnitStates" value="false"/>
        <property name="wantUnigramSmear" value="true"/>
        <property name="unigramSmearWeight" value="1"/>
        <property name="wordInsertionProbability" 
                value="${wordInsertionProbability}"/>
        <property name="silenceInsertionProbability" 
                value="${silenceInsertionProbability}"/>
        <property name="languageWeight" value="${languageWeight}"/>
        <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
    </component>    


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Dictionary configuration                            -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <component name="dictionary" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.dictionary.FastDictionary">
        <property name="dictionaryPath"
                  value="file:src/voxforge-en-0.4/etc/cmudict.0.7a"/>
        <property name="fillerPath" 
              value="file:src/voxforge-en-0.4/model_parameters/voxforge_en_sphinx.cd_cont_5000/noisedict"/>
        <property name="addSilEndingPronunciation" value="false"/>
        <property name="wordReplacement" value="&lt;sil&gt;"/>
        <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
    </component>


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The Language Model configuration                         -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <component name="trigramModel" 
          type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.language.ngram.large.LargeTrigramModel">
        <property name="unigramWeight" value=".5"/>
        <property name="maxDepth" value="3"/>
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
        <property name="location" value="file:src/voxforge-en-0.4/wsj5k.DMP"/>
<!--      <property name="location"   value="file:src/voxforge-Language/language_model.arpaformat.DMP"/>-->
    </component>


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The acoustic model configuration                         -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <component name="wsj"
               type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.acoustic.tiedstate.TiedStateAcousticModel">
        <property name="loader" value="wsjLoader"/>
        <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
    </component>

    <component name="wsjLoader" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.acoustic.tiedstate.Sphinx3Loader">
        <property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
        <property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
<!--        <property name="location" value="file:src/hub4opensrc.cd_continuous_8gau"/>-->
        <property name="location" value="file:src/voxforge-en-0.4/model_parameters/voxforge_en_sphinx.cd_cont_5000" />
        <property name="dataLocation" value=""/>
    </component>

    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The unit manager configuration                           -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->

    <component name="unitManager" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.acoustic.UnitManager"/>


    <!-- ******************************************************** -->
    <!-- The frontend configuration                               -->
    <!-- ******************************************************** -->

    <component name="epFrontEnd" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.FrontEnd">
        <propertylist name="pipeline">
            <item>audioFileDataSource </item>
            <item>dataBlocker </item>
            <item>speechClassifier </item>
            <item>speechMarker </item>
            <item>nonSpeechDataFilter </item>
            <item>preemphasizer </item>
            <item>windower </item>
            <item>fft </item>
            <item>melFilterBank </item>
            <item>dct </item>
            <item>liveCMN </item>
            <item>featureExtraction </item>
        </propertylist>
    </component>

    <component name="audioFileDataSource" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.util.AudioFileDataSource"/>


    <component name="microphone" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.util.Microphone">
        <property name="closeBetweenUtterances" value="false"/>
    </component>

    <component name="dataBlocker" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.DataBlocker"/>

    <component name="speechClassifier"
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechClassifier">
        <property name="threshold" value="13"/>
    </component>

    <component name="nonSpeechDataFilter" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.NonSpeechDataFilter"/>

    <component name="speechMarker" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechMarker">
        <property name="speechTrailer" value="50"/>
    </component>

    <component name="preemphasizer"
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.filter.Preemphasizer"/>

    <component name="windower" 
    type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.window.RaisedCosineWindower"/>

    <component name="fft" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteFourierTransform"/>

    <component name="melFilterBank" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.frequencywarp.MelFrequencyFilterBank"/>

    <component name="dct" 
            type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteCosineTransform"/>

    <component name="liveCMN" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.LiveCMN"/>

    <component name="featureExtraction" 
        type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.DeltasFeatureExtractor"/>

    <!-- ******************************************************* -->
    <!--  monitors                                               -->
    <!-- ******************************************************* -->

    <component name="accuracyTracker" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.BestPathAccuracyTracker">
        <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
        <property name="showRawResults" value="false"/>
        <property name="showAlignedResults" value="false"/>
    </component>

    <component name="memoryTracker" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.MemoryTracker">
        <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
        <property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
        <property name="showSummary" value="false"/>
    </component>

    <component name="speedTracker" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.SpeedTracker">
        <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
        <property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
        <property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
    </component>

    <component name="recognizerMonitor" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.RecognizerMonitor">
        <property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
        <propertylist name="allocatedMonitors">
            <item>configMonitor </item>
        </propertylist>
    </component>

    <component name="configMonitor" 
                type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.ConfigMonitor">
        <property name="showConfig" value="false"/>
    </component>


    <!-- ******************************************************* -->
    <!--  Miscellaneous components                               -->
    <!-- ******************************************************* -->

    <component name="logMath" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.util.LogMath">
        <property name="logBase" value="1.0001"/>
        <property name="useAddTable" value="true"/>
    </component>
</config>

Is their anything wrong with my configuration ? Plz help....

Echevarria

This question has no clear focus and pretty useless. – Dainedainty

What u cant understand ....? the intent is clear from the line "I want to create an application which takes a .wav (or any other standard audio file format) and converts it to text." than in the rest of the question I have explained what I have done for this and what errors I am facing ? – Echevarria

"I want to create an application which takes a .wav (or any other standard audio file format) and converts it to text" is a statement, it's not a question. You also misleading on using Voxforge model which you shouldn't use. You also never describe exactly what problem do you have. – Dainedainty

than what I can use ? I configured Sphinx4 with VoxForge but the accuracy is much below the acceptance level... help!! – Echevarria

If you have accuracy problems you might want to read the FAQ entry cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/faq#qwhy_my_accuracy_is_poor – Dainedainty

See also my comment here #7412063 – Dainedainty

Answer 1

For Speech Recognition I have decided to use sphinx4, I am trying to run the demo Transcriber.jar provided with sphinx. That doesn't work when I give some other file as input.

If you describe your issues better you could get more definite help on this problem

How do I proceed ?

Read the tutorial

http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/tutorial

Where do I get the language model for US English that can be used with Sphinx4 ?

You can download them from CMUSphinx website and from other places. You can also build them yourself. One of the possible locations are

http://www.keithv.com/software/csr/

Any blog / tutorial will be helpful,

See above

However the files used in this tutorial are of differrent extensions, I am stuck in this phase I cant decide which path should be given in configuration. Plz Help,

See the example config in sphinx4/tests/performance/voxforge_en/voxforge.config.xml. It has all required paths

Dainedainty

thanks.... The demo gives ClassCastException when I give some other .wav file as input... – Echevarria

Provide full exception text. Provide information about the version you are using. Provide more information about modifications you've made. Then for sure your problem will be very easy to resolve. – Dainedainty

I think the bit rate used by sample application and of my .way file is different, so I am trying changing that will post the result. I am using sphinx4-1.0beta6. – Echevarria

the prgram now works for all the .wav files of 16Khz, but the language grammar is very limited... I am trying to configure it with VoxForge Models but that is not working... plz see the edited question!! – Echevarria