sofar: Upcoming changes in SOFA standard and conventions

[f-brinkmann]

The standard convention will get an update soon, which mainly enforces a stricter handling of variable shapes. Before the update a variable could have shapes of different dimenstions, e.g., IC or ECM (I: single dimension, C: 3 coordinate points, E: number of emitters, M: number of measurements). After the update this is not allowed anymore and shapes would have to be ICI or ECM for the example above.

This leads to many cases where variables can have leading and trailing single dimensions, e.g., ICI or even II, which might be a little annoying. Currently trailing single dimensions are squeezed away as described in the notes of sofa_read. This can change as it is, but it shoule be tested if

• multidimensional arrays containing only single dimensions, e.g., an array of shape=(1,1) are squeezed as is currently already done for arrays of shape (1, )
• String Variables of new shapes (see below) are correctly handled.
• Make sure that all possible shapes that a sofa variable can have are of the same dimension (verification for convention)
• Revisit checking the shapes (at the moment trailing single dimensions are added until the dimension equals 4). Is this still fine.?- [ ] Requires https://github.com/pyfar/sofa_conventions/tree/SOFAtoolbox_develop_conventions
  • Cherry pick changes in rules/upgrade.json
  • Discard changes in conventions folder (chaged due to manual copy of new convensions from SOFAtoolbox devlop branch)
  • Properly update conventions from sofaconventions.org/conventions using sofar.update_conventions
  • run tests again
  • update submodule in sofar

Questions:

• SOFAtoolbox and sofaconventions.org/conventions list GeneralTF_1.0 and GeneralTF_2.0 on the develop branch. Shouldn't the older one be deprecated?
• Should free field directivity 1.1 be increased to 1.2 because the name 'Description' changed to 'Descriptions'?

Changes in shapes (dimensions) of updated conventions:

• EmitterDescriptions (string) to shapes (MSI, ESI, MES)
  • from (MS, ES, MES)
    • FreeFieldDirectivityTF_1.1
  • from (ES, ESM) - wild
    • SingleRoomMIMOSRIR_1.0
• EmitterPosition (double) to shapes (eCI, ECM)
  • from (eC, eCM)
    • AnnotatedEmitterAudio_0.2
    • AnnotatedReceiverAudio_0.2
    • FreeFieldDirectivityTF_1.1
    • GeneralTF_2.0
• EmitterPosition (double) to shapes (ICI, ECI, ECM)
  • from (IC, ECI, ECM)
    • FreeFieldHRIR_1.0
    • FreeFieldHRTF_1.0
    • SingleRoomMIMOSRIR_1.0
  • from (IC, EC, ECM)
    • GeneralFIR-E_2.0
    • GeneralTF-E_1.0
• ReceiverDescriptions (string) to shapes (MSI, RSI, MRS)
  • from shapes (RS, RSM) - wild
    • SingleRoomMIMOSRIR_1.0
• Receiver position (double) to shapes (RCI, RCM)
  • from (RC, RCM)
    • AnnotatedReceiverAudio_0.2
    • AnnotatedEmitterAudio_0.2
• Receiver position (double) to shapes (ICI, RCI, RCM)
  • from (IC, RC, RCM)
    • FreeFieldDirectivityTF_1.1
    • GeneralFIR-E_2.0
    • GeneralFIR_1.0
    • GeneralSOS_1.0
    • GeneralTF-E_1.0
    • GeneralTF_2.0
  • from (IC, RCI, RCM)
    • SingleRoomMIMOSRIR_1.0
• Room Volume (double) to shapes (II, MI)
  • SingleRoomSRIR_1.0
  • SingleRoomSRIR_1.1
  • SingleRoomMIMOSRIR_1.0

Other changes:

• FreeFieldDirectivityTF_1.1
  • Renamed Description to Descriptions
• SimpleHeadphoneIR_1.1 added 's' to end of string variables:
  • SourceManufacturer renamed to SourceManufacturers
  • SourceModel renamed to SourceModels
  • ReceiverDescription renamed to ReceiverDescriptions
  • EmitterDescription renamed to EmitterDescriptions
• SingleRoomSRIR 1.1 added variables
  • ReceiverDescriptions (string) of shape MSI, RSI, MRS
  • EmitterDescriptions (string) of shape MSI, ESI, MES
  • MeasurementDate (double) of shape M (???)
• Changes of the default coordinate system (not logged here)
• Updated comments (not logged here)
• Removed mandatory flag for some fields (not logged here)
• Changed default values of some coordinates (not logged here)