manual.md

User Manual

This document serves as a user manual to the Music Visualiser application.

Table of Contents

1. Requirements
2. Setup and Build
3. Application Manual
   1. Navigation
      1. File Menu
      2. Playback Menu
      3. Visualisers Menu
   2. Visualisers
      1. Equalizer Visualiser
      2. Circular Visualiser
      3. Volumes Visualiser

Requirements

For building and running the application, you will need the following installed on your system.

• C++ compiler (min. version C++20)
• CMake build tool (min. version 3.21)
• Make - usually comes installed with the tools above

Setup And Build

The following section demonstrates the installation, setup and build of the project.

1. Clone the project and all its submodules using git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://gitlab.mff.cuni.cz/bodat/music-visualiser.git
2. Open the project in an IDE of your choice that supports C++ and CMake
3. Build the project using the IDE's built-in project builder (the CMakeLists.txt is prepared in a way it builds everything needed to produce an executable file and all corresponding libraries)

Application Manual

The following sections demonstrate how to use and control the application.

Navigation

The application is controlled using a toolbar located on the top of the window. The toolbar contains three main menus, which are File, Playback and Visualiser.

File Menu

This menu is used for general actions and consists of two options.

• Choose new file... - this action shows a file selection dialog and allows the user to select a new audio file to be played (can be triggered using the Ctrl+N shortcut)
• Quit - this action quits the application (can be triggered using the Ctrl+Q shortcut)

Playback Menu

This menu is used for controlling the audio playback and consists of two options.

• Resume - this action resumes the audio playback (can be triggered using the Ctrl+R shortcut)
• Pause - this action pauses the audio playback (can be triggered using the Ctrl+P shortcut)

Visualiser Menu

This menu is used for switching current visualiser and consists of two options.

• Equalizer - this action changes the current visualiser to Equalizer visualiser (can be triggered using the Ctrl+E shortcut)
• Circular - this action changes the current visualiser to Circular visualiser (can be triggered using the Ctrl+C shortcut)
• Volumes - this action changes the current visualiser to Volumes visualiser (can be triggered using the Ctrl+V shortcut)

Visualisers

There are three visualisers the user can choose from, which are Equalizer, Circular and Volumes.

Equalizer Visualiser

This visualiser is the most natural way to visualise the frequency spectrum of an audio file. It represents a two-dimensional grid, where the horizontal axis represents the frequency value in Hertz and the vertical axis represents the corresponding frequency magnitude in decibels.
There are two colored lines representing the left and right channel of the audio file. The red line represents the left channel and the blue line represents the right channel.

Circular Visualiser

This visualiser also represents the frequency spectrum of an audio file. In this case, the spectrum is visualised around a central oval, striking the frequency bins to every direction.
the left side of the circle represents the frequency spectrum of the left channel and the right side of the circle represent the frequency spectrum of the right channel.

Volumes Visualiser

This visualiser is represents a waveform of the whole audio file based on the maximum volume at any given second of its duration.
Each second of the audio file is represented as a small rectangle, that's height corresponds to the maximum volume of that second.
There is also a blue line that moves from left to right over time, representing a pointer to the current second of the audio playback.

by Tomáš Boďa