Section: New Software and Platforms

Ascograph: Antescofo Visual Editor

Participants : Thomas Coffy [ADT] , Arshia Cont.

The Antescofo programming language can be extended to visual programing to better integrate existing scores and to allow users to construct complex and embedded temporal structures that are not easily integrated into text. This project is held since October 2012 thanks to Inria ADT Support.

AscoGraph, the Antescofo graphical score editor released in 2013, provides a autonomous Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the authoring of Antescofo scores. Antescofo listening machine, when going forward in the score during recognition, uses the message passing paradigm to perform tasks such as automatic accompaniment, spatialization, etc. The Antescofo score is a text file containing notes (chord, notes, trills, ...) to follow, synchronization strategies on how to trigger actions, and electronic actions (the reactive language). This editor shares the same score parsing routines with Antescofo core, so the validity of the score is checked on saving while editing in AscoGraph, with proper parsing errors handling. Graphically, the application is divided in two parts (see Figure 2 ). On the left side, a graphical representation of the score, using a timeline with tracks view. On the right side, a text editor with syntax coloring of the score is displayed. Both views can be edited and are synchronized on saving. Special objects such as "curves", are graphically editable: they are used to provide high-level variable automation facilities like breakpoints functions (BPF) with more than 30 interpolations possible types between points, graphically editable.

An important feature of AscoGraph is the score import from MusicXML or MIDI files, which make the complete workflow of the composition of a musical piece much easier than before.

AscoGraph is strongly connected with Antescofo core object (using OSC over UDP): when a score is edited and modified it is automatically reloaded in Antescofo, and on the other hand, when Antescofo follows a score (during a concert or rehearsal) both graphical and textual view of the score will scroll and show the current position of Antescofo.

AscoGraph is released under Open-Source MIT license and has been released publicly along with new Antescofo architecture during IRCAM Forum 2013. Recent development was published in [11] .