Raven Viewer

Explore Animal Sounds with Free Internet Tool

Hearing a cricket chirp, a bird cheep, or a beluga bellow is one thing?now you can also see it, via the new Raven Viewer player created by the Lab?s Macaulay Library team.

?Raven Viewer is the first and only player allowing you to do real-time audio visualization over the Internet,? says Macaulay Library acting director Greg Budney, ?And it?s free!? Raven Viewer is featured in the September 22 issue of Science as runner-up in the "Science and Engineering Challenge," an international competition sponsored by the magazine and the National Science Foundation. Raven Viewer scored in the category for best interactive tools for visualizing sounds in science.

With Raven Viewer, anyone may preview digitized sound and video recordings in the Macaulay Library archives. ?It?s a way to give more people access to our collections,? Budney says, ?That?s important to our core mission in education and scientific research.?

When you click on a specific recording and choose the ?visualize? button, you?ll hear and see it in spectrogram and waveform panels with adjustable settings. Video clips with sound can also be played. Try it out now!