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COMPUTER SOFTWARE
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Caller's Angels, the leading square dance choreography program, now has Voice Recognition. Use your microphone to call to the dancers on your computer screen and watch the dancers perform your calls.
"Caller's Angels is a great teaching tool for student callers." -Charlie Fagan "Caller's Angels is a great program - I've used it for 15 years. It's a great tool for new callers. Also, I use it to show dancers if they are having trouble understanding a call - they can see their motions from an overhead view." -Andy Finch "Caller's Angels Version 4.0 is a winner. I didn’t touch the keyboard or mouse for a half hour; I can just use my microphone to call and lose myself in the calling." -Marc Chambers
Caller's Angels is a computer program that lets you call to simulated dancers on a computer screen. The dancers are displayed as icons representing boys and girls in different colors. The main way to use the square dance program is to try out your choreography and see the effects on the dancers. You can see how the call is going to work out without wondering, "Did I push the checkers right?" You can also use this program to develop fancy get-outs. Caller's Angels has an extensive algorithm for checking whether it's OK to do a Allemande Left, Right and Left Grand, or Swing. Also, you can use this program to explore the latest quarterly selection. Caller's Angels lets you define a quarterly selection as a new call and use it in your own routines and singing call figures.
The following is a description of the main features of the program. Standard Windows Application – Caller’s Angels is a complete 32-bit Windows application, using menus, accelerators, mnemonics, dialog box control, standard windows file names, drag and drop of files, standard Windows clipboard communication with text editors, and standard mouse control of editing. Three Input Modes: Microphone, Mouse, Keyboard - With the addition of microphone input, Caller's Angels now has three compatible modes of input: microphone, mouse, and keyboard (typing). You can switch between these interchangeably. Undo - The dancers are displayed on the computer screen and move from one formation to the next as you speak your calls into your microphone (or select a call from the Pick List, or type in the call or its abbreviation). Saying, mousing, or typing "Undo" backs up the dancers and "un-does" your previous call. Undo can be called repeatedly to back up the dancers. Choreo List Saved - The choreo list is a list of calls you have called. The choreo list can be saved, reloaded, edited, printed, and replayed as a tip or a module you are developing. Caller’s Angels uses the CALLERLAB names of the calls. The menus also list the most-recently opened files for quick access to the most recently used lists. Multiple Choreo Windows - The display includes the dancers, call, formation, and number of steps in the calls danced so far. You can have multiple choreo windows open at the same time, and they can be independently animated. Calls Through A-2 - The set of calls included is the set of CALLERLAB calls at the Basic, Mainstream, Plus, A-1, and A-2 levels. The CALLERLAB definition of a call can be displayed in the Help System with a single mouse click. Resolution Generator - With the Resolution Generator you can generate resolutions to an Allemande Left, Right and Left Grand, Swing your Partner, and Return to Home. You can try out each of the resolutions with a single mouse click. The Resolution Generator can feature a single call if you are workshopping a call at your next dance. The Resolution Generator also has a filter to ignore common calls such as Face Left. Resolution Checking - When calling Allemande Left or Right and Left Grand, the Resolution Generator will check to make sure that the dancers are in the proper sequence, facing direction, etc, to resolve the square.
Dancer Designators - Caller's Angels has an extensive set of dancer identification features: e.g., boys, girls, centers, ends, very centers, very ends, infacers, outfacers, heads, sides, center boys, center girls, leaders, trailers. Call Level Limit - The level feature allows to you limit the legal level of the calls to a specific set of calls (e.g., Mainstream, Plus). It also allows you to limit the calls to a specific place in the teaching order (e.g., call 34). The teaching order itself can also be modified. Formulas - The Formula feature allows you to teach and define sequences of calls and use them as setups or for quarterly selections. The formulas can also be used and featured in the Resolution Generator. Asymmetric - The Asymmetric feature allows you to move dancers into asymmetric formations and positions. The standard calls, when applicable, will work from these asymmetric positions. Animation - The Animation feature shows the dancers moving through the calls and shows the flow of dancers. You can step through the animation forward or backward. The animation speed is controlled by a slider for maximum flexibility. Also, you can isolate a particular dancer with the mouse to make it easier to follow the dancer through a call. Formations – With the Formation dialog you can move the dancers to a particular formation with a single mouse click. Colors, Fonts - The dancer colors, dancer numbers, and fonts in the choreo list and pick list are modifiable using the standard Windows dialog boxes. User Preferences - The above features include numerous user preferences. Your preferences are automatically saved and reloaded each time you start the program. On-line Help and User's Manual - Caller's Angels has an on-line User's Manual as well as a printable version on the installation CD-ROM. The on-line User's Manual can be accessed from any menu or dialog using context-sensitive help (a Windows standard).
Instant Recognition - Your words appear on the screen as they are recognized in real time. Targeted Recognition - The speech recognizer can be limited to only the legal calls and designators from the current formation and dancer position. Voice Control – Use your microphone to control the program's menus and dialogs as well as for calling. Voice Verification - You can hear the Text-to-Speech voice output repeat your calls for verification.
CPU processor speed: 200 Mhz minimum
Caller's Angels Version 4.0 is packaged on a single CD-ROM. The CD-ROM contains Caller's Angels software plus all of the speech engine software required for voice input and output. Caller's Angels Version 3.2 is also packaged on a single CD-ROM Bill’s Comment on Computer Setup "In order to test this on the minimum setup, I went to the local computer recycling store and bought an old 200 Mhz HP machine for $30 and connected my old 800x600 pixel monitor to it. I then installed Windows 98. Finally, I installed Caller's Angels on the computer and all the speech engine components." "When I ran it, I was amazed that the speech engine worked fine at recognizing the calls and commands. However, the screen is really too small for any reasonable application these days, and the animation was fast enough, but barely." "So, I recommend a machine faster than 200 Mhz – like at least 333 Mhz – and for sure a bigger screen than my 12-year-old 800x600 pixel screen."
Caller's Angels was first developed in Spring of 1988 and version 1 was released in July 1988. Since then, over 1000 licenses have been sold world-wide, mostly through Hilton Audio Products. Caller's Angels has served a wide variety of caller's needs, including verifying caller's notes services, teaching new callers, and developing choreography for individual callers. Caller's Angels Version 1.0 was released in July of 1988. That was back when computer graphics were on Apple and Atari machines and programs had to fit into 186Kb of memory. Version 2, released in April 1990, included additional graphics and formula capabilities. Version 3 was developed in Spring of 1996. New features included animation, Windows integration, the A-1 and A-2 call lists, and on-line, context sensitive help. Version 3.2 was released in May 2004. It has all the features described above and is packaged on a CD-ROM. (It does not have voice input and output.) Version 4.0 also was released in May 2004. It has all the features described above, including voice input and output. It is packaged on a CD-ROM. Both Versions 3.2 and 4.0 are packaged on CD-ROMs.
Version 3.2 has the following features that were not in Version 3.1: The initialization file is now automatically updated for most preference values. For example, the call level is automatically saved and reloaded the next time you start up Caller’s Angels. This means that the screen will be where you left it, the colors you selected will be the same as when you last exited Caller’s Angels, the call level will be the same, etc. The Pick List capability has been improved, with both designators and formulas being listed. The Pick List is automatically updated after every call and lists the legal calls from the current formation. You can now Add, Edit, and Delete Formulas directly from the program using the Show Formulas menu command. The resolution generator now finds Return to Home getouts. The CALLERLAB call definitions are available on-line in the Help System. Numerous formations were added and numerous calls were improved.
Bill Faught and Cathy Villa have been a husband-and-wife square dance calling team in California. They danced originally with the Township Twirlers in Fremont, California, and both attended the Bay Area Caller's School conducted by Bill Davis and Kip Garvey. As part of his desire to master formation awareness and sight calling resolution, Bill programmed a workstation computer to move dancers on the screen in response to typed-in square dance calls. The Caller's Angels computer program is an extension of that program. Bill Faught earned his Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence and researched Speech Recognition at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab in the 1970s, back when 256Kb of 36-bit words was a lot of computer memory. While hardware, software, and speech recognition technology have much improved since then, this technology is not yet good enough for general computer input. However, with the right design, specific programs can utilize voice input, particularly programs such as software for square dance callers where the natural medium of input is voice. Bill has worked in research and defense companies developing software for 25 years. He is currently a senior engineer at a leading vendor of advanced-solutions software. Cathy Villa received degrees in English and Computer Science from UCLA and Cal State and has worked in defense and software development companies as a programmer and documentation author and editor.
Computer researchers have been working on speech recognition for the past thirty years. In the mid 1970s, one research director suggested that the problem would be solved in ten years, max. It hasn't quite worked out that way; the main forms of human input to a computer are still a mouse and keyboard. However, recently there have been significant advances in speech recognition technology and computer processor speed, enough so that a number of focused applications have been able to recognize human speech in a reasonably productive manner (think 800-555-1212). Caller's Angels now takes advantage of these advances to include a Voice Input feature. Version 4.0 of Caller's Angels was under development for a year and a half, and has been tested extensively on multiple versions of Windows, different types of computers (including desktop and laptop), and different grades of microphones. System Requirements for Caller's Angels Version 4.0 CPU processor speed: 200 MHz minimum, but
333MHz and higher works much better for voice input and animation.
For a complete information package contact Dick Henschel at: HILTON AUDIO
PRODUCTS, INC.
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