Lightweight Algorithm Sonification

SendOSC is a lightweight, header-only implementation of the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol designed for real-time sonification of algorithmic data streams over UDP.

📌 Overview

Sonification is the process of translating data into auditory representations. SendOSC enables algorithm designers, software engineers, and researchers to analyze, debug, and monitor algorithm performance through continuous real-time auditory feedback.

🎧 Motivation: Why Sonify Algorithms?

Algorithm executions produce time-series data composed of internal state transitions, loop iterations, memory accesses, and dynamic events. Unless recorded, these internal states are typically unobserved, as the computational result is the main focus for the majority of algorithm executions.

Engineers typically use textual logging or debugging tools to observe the execution traces of algorithmic implementations in their analyses. Visualisations can map higher densities of internal state abstractions onto proximate perception, allowing us to observe qualitative and global behaviour.

Sonifications of internal state are tailored towards the human auditory system, which can have several advantages. Providing auditory feedback can enrich online interactions with algorithmic systems by improving understanding and control.

Through its high temporal resolution, the human auditory system excels at distinguishing high-frequency temporal patterns that visual displays would miss.

🎯 Scope & Design

• Provides a typed, fluent interface for constructing OSC messages from OSC value types.
• Encodes OSC bundles and sends them over UDP in a lightweight, header-only, zero-dependency implementation.
• Leaves sound synthesis to external audio systems, such as SuperCollider, Pure Data, and Max/MSP.

Build and test

Requires Linux, a C++20 compiler, and CMake. Run from the repository root:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
cmake --build build --target test

SuperCollider sound test

After building, run from the repository root (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install supercollider
./tests/sctest.sh

Loads tests/sctest.scd headlessly and plays a Fibonacci state loop. Requires working audio/JACK and a free port 57120; shuts down automatically.

⚙️ The Sonification Pipeline

Translating algorithm execution dynamics into meaningful soundscapes requires a two-step separation of concerns:

+----------------------------+        OSC Stream        +-------------------------------+
|    Algorithm + SendOSC     |   ====================>  |   Digital Sound Synthesizer   |
|     (Data Selection)       |       (UDP Network)      |      (Acoustic Modeling)      |
+----------------------------+                          +-------------------------------+

1. Data Selection (SendOSC)
   • Identify internal data points, metrics, and event triggers during runtime.
   • Package and broadcast execution state as structured OSC messages over UDP.
2. Acoustic Modeling (External Audio Engine)
   • Receive incoming OSC streams.
   • Map incoming execution state messages to acoustic parameters (e.g., frequency, pitch, velocity, timbre, panning) using specialized software (e.g., SuperCollider, Pure Data, Max/MSP).