[R] Embedding Audio Files in Interactive Graphs

[Paul Murrell]

Hi


Michael Lawrence wrote:
> On 9/4/07, Sam Ferguson <thefishfinger at ihug.com.au > wrote:
>> Thanks for your reply Bruno.
>>
>> No - as I said, I know how to do that - the movie15 and the
>> multimedia package are basically the same, and it is relatively
>> straightforward to get an audio file into a pdf with them. However,
>> real interactivity is not easily achieved in latex IMO (as it's not
>> its purpose). At least I'm hoping for a bit more flexibility.
>>
>> R seems like a better place to do interactivity, and with the field
>> of information visualisation pointing out that interactivity is a
>> very useful element for investigation of data it seems that clicking
>> around graphical displays may become more and more popular in time.
>> In my field I'm interested in audio data, and so simple interactive
>> visual and auditory displays would be great. A (very useful) start
>> would be 5 separate waveform plots that would play their appropriate
>> sounds when clicked. More complex figures could plot in a 2d space
>> and allow selection of data points or ranges perhaps.
>>
>> I love R for graphics and for Sweave though, and would like to use it
>> if possible - ideally it would be to produce a figure that included
>> the appropriate audiofiles and interactive scripts, which could then
>> be incorporated into a latex document \includegraphics. However, from
>> the deafening silence on this list it seems like I may be attempting
>> to push a square block through a round hole unfortunately. Seems I am
>> back to Matlab and handle graphics - but it won't do this properly
>> either.
> 
> 
> Lots of things can be embedded into PDF documents, like javascript, flash
> and svg. Maybe it would be feasible to use the gridSVG package to output
> some graphics as svg with javascript to play the sounds and embed that into
> a pdf?


The short answer is that R cannot do this sort of thing and is unlikely 
to be able to do it anytime soon.

The basic problem is that core R graphics has no concept of animation, 
audio, hyperlinks, etc AND there is no way to access these features on 
devices that do have these concepts (e.g., PDF).  It would be nice to 
change that, but it is a large redesign problem that is not anywhere 
near the top of anyone's todo list (to my knowledge).

As Michael mentioned, the gridSVG package allows you to draw using the 
grid package and access some of the fancier SVG features (including 
embedding scripts).  It has its own problems of course, but may be worth 
trying.

Paul


> Cheers
>> Sam
>>
>>
>> On 03/09/2007, at 5:39 PM, Bruno C.. wrote:
>>
>>> Are you asking on how to include an  audio file into a pdf?
>>> This is already feasible via latex and the movie 15 package ;)
>>>
>>> Ciao
>>>
>>>> Hi R-ers,
>>>>
>>>> I'm wondering if anyone has investigated a method for embedding audio
>>>> files in R graphs (pdf format), and allowing their playback to be
>>>> triggered interactively (by clicking on a graph element for
>>>> instance).
>>>>
>>>> I know how to do this in latex pdfs with the multimedia package, but
>>>> it seems that R would provide a more appropriate platform for many
>>>> reasons.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for any help you can provide.
>>>> Sam Ferguson
>>>> Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
>>>> The University of Sydney
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________
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>>>> guide.html
>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>>>
>>>
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>> --
>> Sam Ferguson
>> Faculty of Architecture
>> The University of Sydney
>> sferguson at arch.usyd.edu.au
>> +61 2 93515910
>> 0410 719535
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
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> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
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-- 
Dr Paul Murrell
Department of Statistics
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
64 9 3737599 x85392
paul at stat.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/