Hey, What's New in Raven?

Lots of things!

Raven Pro 1.6.5

We are thrilled to announce the latest release of Raven Pro which includes a major leap forward: Machine Learning is now in Raven!

In the new release, Raven introduces "Learning Detector" as a platform to allow user to integrate machine learning models as automatic detection and classification tools. Four models are included in this release as examples:

BirdNET (3,000+ avian species)
Katydid (30+ Panama katydid classes)
Blue whale
North Atlantic right whale

Raven users can train and add their own models. Documentation for the Learning Detector, including how to prepare your models to be used in Raven, can be found in
https://ravensoundsoftware.com/article-categories/learning-detector/

In addition, we have made numerous improvements and bug fixes. A brief summary is listed below. As always, we welcome your feedback - raven_support@cornell.edu

We made several UI and communication message improvements
Default window size for batch detection is now 512 samples like everywhere else in the app instead of 256
Information side panel now reports correct length and samples (total length of opened sound files instead of the first file)
Paged sound windows now works with Leq & SEL measurements
Paged sound view can advance now even if selection spectrum view is active
Selection Review Annotation Keymaps dialog is working again
Improvements were made related to commit selection
Improvements were made related to auto save selections/detections, including batch detector case
"Fill Selected Cells" controls is working again via menu
We updated dependencies to resolve security issues

Known issues:

Learning Detector is not supported on Mac computers with Apple Silicon chip

Raven Pro 1.6.4

We've been hard at work improving Raven for this release and have made many improvements and squashed even more bugs. As always, we welcome your feedback - raven_support@cornell.edu

Major performance improvement while using FLAC files. Also, using FLAC files in Raven is no longer terrible
Selection review has 25 updates and bug fixes
High sample rate audio has several bug fixes and playback performance improvements
Installation now works even better across operating systems
Errors are now handled more clearly and gracefully
Usability improvements throughout the app
Audio playback is greatly improved and faster now
Stability and performance improvements
Security patches have been applied

Raven Pro 1.6.3

Bug Fixes

Fixed issue with playback for 24-bit files
Fixed issue causing empty Preset folder
Fixed issue with vertical signal views
Fixed keyboard shortcut for fill down in Selection Table (CTRL+D, or CMD+D)
Keep position in Selection Table after deleting a selection

Known issues

If user installed Raven Pro 1.6.2, preset folders may not have been deployed properly. To resolve this, delete /Users/(username)/Raven Pro 1.6/Presets and restart Raven.

Raven Pro 1.6.2

New Features

Added a Playback Volume slider in the toolbar
Amplify feature now allows setting peak dB re Full Scale
New keyboard shortcut to stop playback
Users can now set peak amplitude in dB re full scale
Added Turbo colormap

Improvements, Bug Fixes

General performance improvements
Significant improvements and fixes to power measurements and views
Fixed several issues with sound window presets
Fixed Time measurement names
Improved image export options
Updated logging framework
Removed beamogram functionality
Several performance improvements to memory management
Improved accuracy of reported measurement/power values
Fixes several website links
Dialogs and message improvements
Improved installation procedure for OS X and Windows
Improved usability for paged measurements
Expanded functionality of presets
Improved functionality of image export - % and DPI
Playback volume is not affected by the calibration
Improved licensing procedure for institutions
Improved selection table usability
Fixed relative time measurement titles
Fixed command line invocation of detectors
Raven state file is no longer a hidden file

Known Issues

Command line arguments on MacOS do not work
Exported Sample values are never the PSD (power signal density) values

Raven Pro 1.6.1

12 NOV 2019

First public release of Raven 1.6!
Added preference for displaying power in dB Full Scale
Prevent opening selection tables with invalid frequency parameters
Fixed errors in signal calibration
Several UI improvements and bug fixes

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 6

26 AUG 2019

Warn users when opening a table with duplicate Selection IDs, offer to re-number.
Fixed bug where sometimes 'Enter' would not commit a selection.
Several other minor bug fixes.

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 5

24 JUL 2019

Fixed Filtered Waveform and Filtered Spectrogram views. These can be enabled in the Preference Manager under Views -> New filter views enabled.
Fixed bug when calculating time remaining while downloading updates.
Fixed "...is not optimized for you Mac..." warning when installing on MacOS.

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 4

18 JUL 2019

Removed look and feel selection due to rendering defects. Platform defaults will be used.
Changed default format for saving sound files to WAV instead of AIF.
Improved signal frame spacing when tiling on MacOS.
Preserve check box and radio button settings in "Date and Time" tab of "Configure New Sound Window" dialog.

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 3

05 JUL 2019

Improvements to Table and View context menus.
Fixed several installer bugs.
Fixed a few empty and frozen dialogs.
Added cancel option for calibration dialog.
Fixed buttons for draw/hide all selection tables.
Enable user-defined color maps.
Updated help menu contents and links.
Improved error handling when opening mismatched sound files.
Fixed errors when opening MP3 files.

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 2

19 JUN 2019

Resolved platform dependent build issues.

Raven Pro 1.6.0 DEV build 1

12 JUL 2019

Raven 1.6 is out! There are a number of significant changes from 1.5.

Installation and Update

New platform-native installers using BitRock InstallBuilder.
You do not need Java installed before installing Raven anymore.
Java runtime is now included with the installers.
Installers require administrator privileges so that files can be installed in the recommended locations for each OS C:\Program Files on Windows, /Applications on MacOS).
Raven can be installed once on a computer, and multiple users can run it. Each user will have their own data folder for presets, tables, etc. in their user directory.
The automatic update system has been replaced. Updates will now download a whole new installer, which will run and restart Raven automatically.
Linux version now has an installer.

File Locations

Raven Pro is now installed to C:\Program Files\Raven Pro 1.6\ on Windows, /Applications/Raven Pro 1.6/ on Mac, and /opt/RavenPro1.6 on Linux. There is no option to change this in the installer (though it can be changed using the command line).
User files are stored in C:\Users\username\Raven Pro 1.6\ on Windows, /Users/username/Raven Pro 1.6/ on Mac, and /home/username/RavenPro1.6 on Linux. There is currently no option to change this, but one will be added.
The installer does not create the user Raven Pro 1.6 folder; it is created the first time a user runs the program.

Preferences

There is no more RavenPreferences.txt file.
Preferences are edited using a graphical interface in Raven available from the Edit -> Preferences menu option.
The preference editor has a search feature, and preferences are arranged in categories.
Raven does not need to be restarted for changes to preferences to take effect.

Selection Review Annotation Keymaps

Keymaps for definition selection review shortcuts is now done using a GUI in Raven available in the Edit -> Annotation Keymap... menu option.

Presets

The Preset system is migrating to a new scheme. Presets are no longer serialized objects, but text based representations of them (JSON). This should reduce the number of bugs involved with saving/loading/sharing presets.
The 'Presets' folder is still where old presets are stored, 'Presets_New' is where the new preset types are stored.

Faster Spectrograms

Raven now uses the JTransform library for FFT calculations. This is ~25% faster than CanaryFft, which was used on Mac and 64-bit Windows platforms.

Java

Raven now runs on Java 11. The included JRE is Amazon Coretto 11.0.3.

Eclipse

Raven is no longer based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform. It starts up faster, and is easier to maintain now.

Oh, and some more recent changes:

Added Signal to Noise measurement back in.
Improved performance for loading list files.
Fixed bug for opening floating point wave files.
Renamed 1^st Quartile Time measurements to Time 25%.
Renamed 3^rd Quartile Time measurements to Time 75%.
Renamed 1^st Quartile Frequency measurements to Frequency 25%.
Renamed 3^rd Quartile Frequency measurements to Frequency 75%.
Renamed Peak Power measurement to Peak Power Density.
Removed Max Power and Max Frequency measurements. These were duplicated by Peak Power and Peak Frequency.
Improved performance for page/selection navigation.
Improved performance for loading audio files.
Renamed IQR Duration measurement to Duration 50%.
Renamed IQR Bandwidth measurement to Bandwidth 50%.
Fixed inconsistent auto page advance delay.
Improved performance of measurement lookup routines.
Added this What's New page that will be displayed when updates are installed.
Fixed extraneous measurements drawn in selection spectrum review.
Fixed updates for Linux.
Fixed memory management for Linux.
Fixed inconsistent behavior of selection Auto-advance timing.
Updated preference category for some Adaptive Selection preferences.
Clear All Selections (and other View menu items) now refer to the active table.
'Enter' key commits selections more reliably.
Fixed resource leak when opening lots of WAV files.