Sphinx-4 Setup on Eclipse

Installation

• Required Software

  Sphinx-4 has been built and tested on the Solaris^TM Operating Environment, Mac OS X, Linux and Win32 operating systems. Running, building, testing, and debugging Sphinx-4 using Eclipse requires additional software. Before you start, you will need the following software available on your machine.

  • Java SE JDK 5 or better. Go to java.sun.com, and select "Java SE". At the time of writing, the latest release version is 6, which is the one we recommend.
  
  
  • Eclipse 3.0 or better, available at www.eclipse.org. The current documentation was written based on Eclipse 3.1. If you are using other version, some of the options may not be exactly as described here, but semantically similar. The site has documentation that includes various user guides. You will need to install the Java SE JDK before installing Eclipse distribution. Or else, you will need to specify the path to the Java SE JDK within Eclipse.


• Building Sphinx-4 using Eclipse

  The software required for building Sphinx-4 using Eclipse are listed in the Required Software section. The following sections document one way and perhaps, the simplest way, of setting up Sphinx-4 in Eclipse. However, there are other possible ways to set up Sphinx-4 in Eclipse as well that are not covered in the following sections.

  Start Eclipse

  Start Eclipse by either double-clicking on the Eclipse icon or through a command line. Select a suitable path to the workspace when prompted by Eclipse. We will install Sphinx-4 source code from an existing location, but Eclipse requires a workspace to logically handle projects.

  Getting Sphinx-4

  You can get Sphinx-4 as a release package, a nightly build, or directly from the Subversion (SVN) repository. The CVS repository, even though still active, is kept mainly for regression test purposes. We recommend getting Sphinx-4 directly from the Subversion (SVN) repository.

  Eclipse does not have built-in support for SVN as it does for CVS. Subversion provides an add-on for Eclipse, but since there are other stand alone clients for SVN, we will not get into details. For more information about SVN, please visit the Subversion web site. For details specific to SourceForge.net, please check their SourceForge.net: Subversion page. For instructions specifically about how to download Sphinx-4, check the Sphinx-4 user guide.

  This set of instructions assumes that you already downloaded the Sphinx-4 code to a location of your choice. For future reference, we will refer to this location as $SPHINX4_ROOT.

  Create Sphinx-4 as an Eclipse Project

  • Select Java Project in the New Project - Select a Wizard window and click on Next button. This will pop a New Project - Create a Java project window.
  • Enter an appropriate name (recommended name is sphinx4) in the Project name field.
  • Choose Create project from existing source as Contents.
  • Click on Browse and browse to the location where you downloaded Sphinx-4, $SPHINX4_ROOT.
  • Click on Finish button.

  Setup JSAPI 1.0

  Before you build Sphinx-4, it is important to setup your environment to support the Java Speech API (JSAPI), because a number of tests and demos rely on having JSAPI installed.

  Add JSAPI 1.0 as a jar to the Eclipse Project

  While the previous step sets up a jsapi.jar file in the lib directory, this steps makes jsapi.jar visible within the Eclipse Project. Note that in the instructions that follow, we assume that the project name is sphinx4. We named it while creating a project under Eclipse earlier.

  • Select Refresh from the File menu or just press the F5 function key on your keyboard. This will refresh the project and the Package Manager within Eclipse will show the jsapi.jar created in the last step.
  • Select Properties from the Project menu. This will pop a Properties for sphinx4 - Info window.
  • Select Java Build Path option in the left column. This will show up the Java Build Path on the right hand side of the window.
  • Click on the Libraries tab and then, click on Add JARs... button. This will pop a browsing window.
  • Select jsapi.jar by navigating to lib directory, and then click Open button on the browsing window.
  • Next, click on OK button on the Properties for sphinx4 - Java Build Path window. This will add jsapi.jar as a jar to the Eclipse Project.

  Build Sphinx-4 using Ant within Eclipse

  This steps creates a number of directories and files. However, for debugging purposes within Eclipse, we are concerned only with edu.cmu.sphinx.model directory, and TIDIGITS_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar, WSJ_8gau_13dCep_8k_31mel_200Hz_3500Hz.jar and WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar jars. Later, in the next step, we will refresh the sphinx4 project within Eclipse to include edu.cmu.sphinx.model directory as project resource. We will also include the TIDIGITS_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar, WSJ_8gau_13dCep_8k_31mel_200Hz_3500Hz.jar and WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar jars as jars for the sphinx4 project.

  • Select External Tools->External Tools... from the Run menu. This will pop a External Tools - Create, manage, and run configurations window.
  • Select Ant Build option in Configurations. Next, click on New button at the bottom left. This will display a new configuration in the External Tools - Create, manage, and run configurations window.
  • Enter an appropriate name (we recommend sphinx4) of the Ant build in the Name field.
  • Under the Main tab, click on Browse Workspace.... This will pop a Choose Location window.
  • Select build.xml in the right side space, and then, click on OK button.
  • Click on Run button to build Sphinx-4 using Ant.
  • When compiling subsequently, the procedure is simplified. Select External Tools->External Tools... from the Run menu. Then simply select sphinx4.

  Refresh the sphinx4 project and select required source folders

  While the previous step creates edu.cmu.sphinx.model directory, this step refreshes the project that allows the inclusion of edu.cmu.sphinx.model directory as a sphinx4 project source. Selection of required source folders is accomplished in this step to eliminate redundant folders in the Java Build Path within Eclipse.

  • Select Refresh from the File menu or just press the F5 function key on your keyboard. This will refresh the project and the Package Manager within Eclipse will show all the directories, created by Ant in the previous step, as packages.
  • Next, select Properties from the Project menu. This will pop a Properties for sphinx4 window.
  • Select Java Build Path option in the left column. This will show up the Java Build Path on the right hand side of the window.
  • Click on the Source tab and then, click on sphinx4 folder in the window pane. This will expand the sphinx4 folder into Included: (All) and Excluded: (None).
  • Next, double-click on Included: (All). This will pop a Inclusion and Exclusion Patterns - Included and excluded resources for 'sphinx4' window.
  • Click on Add Multiple... button in the Inclusion patterns section. This will pop a browsing window, Inclusion Pattern Selection. Select com folder and click on OK button. Next, click on OK button on the Add Inclusion Pattern window. This will add the folders com, demo, and edu within the Inclusion patterns section, in the Inclusion and Exclusion Patterns - Included and excluded resources for 'sphinx4' window. Select multiple folders as you would normally do on your machine. For example, in Windows, you can select multiple folders by clicking on the folder name at the same time that you hold the CTRL key.
  • Next, click on OK button in the Inclusion and Exclusion Patterns - Included and excluded resources for 'sphinx4' window.
  • Next, click on OK button in the Properties for sphinx4 - Java Build path window.

  Add Sphinx-4 specific jars as jars to the Eclipse Project

  This step makes the TIDIGITS_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar, WSJ_8gau_13dCep_8k_31mel_200Hz_3500Hz.jar, and WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar in the lib directories visible within the Eclipse Project.

  • Select Properties from the Project menu. This will pop a Properties for sphinx4 - Info window.
  • Select Java Build Path option in the left column. This will show up the Java Build Path on the right hand side of the window.
  • Click on the Libraries tab and then, click on Add JARs... button. This will pop a browsing window.
  • Select TIDIGITS_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar by navigating to lib directory, and then click Open button on the browsing window.
  • Select WSJ_8gau_13dCep_8k_31mel_200Hz_3500Hz.jar by navigating to lib directory, and then click Open button on the browsing window.
  • Select WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.jar by navigating to lib directory, and then click Open button on the browsing window.
  • Next, click on OK button on the Properties for sphinx4 - Java Build Path window. This will add these jar files as jars to the Eclipse Project.
  • At this point, you should be able to run and debug applications such as demo.sphinx.hellodigits using Eclipse.
  
  
• Run or Debug Sphinx-4

  In this step, we provide instructions to run Sphinx-4 using Eclipse.

  • Select Run... or Debug... from the Run menu.
  • Click on Java Application and hit the New button.
  • Choose a name for the configuration (e.g. HelloWorld) on the Name: field.
  • Click the Search... in the Main Class pane.
  • Select of the main methods found (e.g. HelloWorld).
  • Click on OK and then on Apply to confirm the configuration.
  • Start the Debug or Run session by hitting the Debug or Run button.


• Troubleshooting
  1. When I try to compile Sphinx-4 with Eclipse, I get a message suggesting JAVA_HOME is not defined. What's missing?
     • Sphinx-4 uses ant to build, and ant requires the environment variable JAVA_HOME to be defined. JAVA_HOME contains the path to the Java JDK. You can define the variable as follows.
     • Unix (t)csh
       • setenv JAVA_HOME /lab/speech/java/jdk1.5.0_04
     • Unix (ba)sh
       • export JAVA_HOME='/lab/speech/java/jdk1.5.0_04'
     • Windows 2k/XP
       • Right click on the "My Computer" icon
       • On the menu, click on "Properties"
       • Click the "Advanced" tab
       • Select "Environment Variables"
       • Click "New" on the "User variables for ...." box
       • On "Variable Name", type "JAVA_HOME"
       • On "Variable Value", type "c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_04"