speech-dispatcher: Motivation
1.1 Motivation
==============
Speech Dispatcher is a device independent layer for speech synthesis
that provides a common easy to use interface for both client
applications (programs that want to speak) and for software synthesizers
(programs actually able to convert text to speech).
High quality speech synthesis is now commonly available both as
propriatary and Free Software solutions. It has a wide field of
possible uses from educational software to specialized systems, e.g. in
hospitals or laboratories. It is also a key compensation tool for the
visually impaired users. For them, it is one of the two possible ways
of getting output from a computer (the second one being a Braille
display).
The various speech synthesizers are quite different, both in their
interfaces and capabilities. Thus a general common interface is needed
so that the client application programmers have an easy way to use
software speech synthesis and don't have to care about peculiar details
of the various synthesizers.
The absence of such a common and standardized interface and thus the
difficulty for programmers to use software speech synthesis has been a
major reason why the potential of speech synthesis technology is still
not fully expoited.
Ideally, there would be little distinction for applications whether
they output messages on the screen or via speech. Speech Dispatcher can
be compared to what a GUI toolkit is for the graphical interface. Not
only does it provide an easy to use interface, some kind of theming and
configuration mechanisms, but also it takes care of some of the issues
inherent with this particular mode of output, such as the need for
speech message serialization and interaction with the audio subsystem.
Info Catalog
speech-dispatcher: Introduction
speech-dispatcher: Introduction
speech-dispatcher: Basic Design