My take on voice activated checklists

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SouthPawPaul
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My take on voice activated checklists

Post by SouthPawPaul »

I know that there are commercial applications out there that do this and more, but I'm a tight git and a software engineer by trade so I thought I'd have a go myself. This is what I have so far.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB4SOt5gVH8[/youtube]

It is written in .Net 4.5 using Visual Studio Express 2012
It's mostly configurable via an xml file.
Checklist can be programmed altered/entered
Voice commands can be changed
WAV files can be attached to each checklist command so that you don't have to listen to Anna.

Update 3rd November 2013
First release can be downloaded here. https://code.google.com/p/voice-activated-checklists/

Update 8th November 2013
Release v0.2 can be downloaded here. https://code.google.com/p/voice-activated-checklists/ It adds keybinds to allow checklists to be read through without a microphone or the Microsoft Speech Engine.

Update 12th November 2013
Release v0.3 can be downloaded here. https://code.google.com/p/voice-activated-checklists/ It adds the ability to direct audio to different output devices.

Update 23rd November 2013
Release v0.4 can be downloaded here. https://code.google.com/p/voice-activated-checklists/ It adds the ability to hide the audio/checklist windows. It also has been altered to work with v4 of .Net Framework allowing people still using Windows XP to use the app.

Update 30th May 2014
Release v0.5 can be downloaded here. https://code.google.com/p/voice-activated-checklists/ It fixes some bugs and adds the "repeat" keyword/keybind functionality. Also an update to a 3rd party library should make it more stable.
Last edited by SouthPawPaul on 30 May 2014, 14:55, edited 6 times in total.
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Lewis - A2A
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Awesome work, so when you releasing? hehe.

Ps, one thing that always bothered about these was the sketchy PC Voice. Can the program use actual recordings for the speech? I realise this would mean alot of recordings but if its an option then I'd prolly record my own for a specific aircraft the 172 for example.

thanks,
Lewis
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SouthPawPaul
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by SouthPawPaul »

It can. If you notice the first checklist item "Pitot tube cover removed" is actually a recording of me.

The program checks to see if a recording is available for the current checklist item and if it isn't it uses the passable but annoying Anna. So yes, you could provide all your own checklist recordings.

I want to get the code into a bit of better shape, but I've every intention of releasing it for free to the fsx wolves. I may even release it as open source :)
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simurqq
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by simurqq »

Very impressive!!! Please keep up, Paul, and count on me as (one of) your first customer(s)... he, he... :)
Thanks!

Victor Q.

smokeyupahead
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by smokeyupahead »

Nice! I don't like Anna's voice but with a human voice it would be really good!
Thank you for this, whenever it will be released...


David
Cheers,
David DD

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rc flyer
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by rc flyer »

First off, welcome to one of the best communities in flight-sim(dom) . Very impressive work 8) . This is similar to the FS2Crew type of voice interaction that I love on the 737 and T7 that I think greatly enhances the immersion factor. I'll be following this very closely and thanks for your work already.

Steve

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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by airworthy »

I don't believe it !! :shock:

I had the similar idea of putting together a checklist reader a couple of weeks ago.
I've programmed it in VB.Net using Visual Basic 2010 Express and I'm just on the home stretch.
Mine is also voice activated and reads a user prepared text file for each checklist............
I'm a real amateur at VB so my app doesn't have the sophistication that your's displays. :roll:

I like what you've done very much........I think I'll put mine to one side and wait for your's to be released :lol:

Cheers
Paul
Last edited by airworthy on 28 Oct 2013, 16:17, edited 2 times in total.

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Lewis - A2A
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Awesome, look forward to giving it a go and playing around with the recording aspect of it. 8)

thanks,
Lewis
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André
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by André »

Genius! Finally a "non-PC voice" Good luck onward with this. Would love to have it!
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SouthPawPaul
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by SouthPawPaul »

I'm currently turning this from a tool that I use into something that vaguely resembles a user friendly app(note vague! :) ).

I am also going to make this open source and upload the source to Google Code so that anyone can input should they feel that way inclined. Hopefully my code won't get hammered too much! Although I'm a commercial developer, I'm not a C# developer!

I hope to have a "first cut" release within the next week.
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Lewis - A2A
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My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Lewis - A2A »

Look forward to the release :)

Will you include a little voice pack of your voice already?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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SouthPawPaul
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by SouthPawPaul »

Lewis - A2A wrote:Look forward to the release :)

Will you include a little voice pack of your voice already?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's not something that had crossed my mind to be honest. Is this something that folks would want?

I was considering a number of video tutorials showing how to configure the system for different scenarios. One of these would be to show how to replace the robotic computer voice with a custom wav file.
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Lewis - A2A
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Lewis - A2A »

I think as a demo of what can be done if you could provide a sample for one aircraft even the default C172 that would be great.

If it kicks off people could then add there own sound packs for different aircraft and post them for download. The community is pretty awesome for things like that and it wouldn't surprise me if that happens. Rather looking forward to this one 8)

thanks,
Lewis
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Mike62
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Mike62 »

Is it possible to have a keyboard shortcut to respond to the checklist item. I currently do not have a headset so voice control will not work for me.

Thanks,
Mike Cameron

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Bruce Hamilton
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Re: My take on voice activated checklists

Post by Bruce Hamilton »

All you need is a cheap microphone, not necessarily a headset.

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