Sonecules: A Python Sonification Architecture

This paper introduces sonecules, a flexible, extensible, end-user friendly and open-source Python sonification toolkit to bring ’sonification to the masses’. The package comes with a basic set of what we define as sonecules which are sonification designs tailored for a given class of data, a selected internal logic for sonification and offering a set of functions to interact with data and sonification controls. This is a design-once-use-many approach as each sonecule can be reused on similarly structured data. The primary goal of sonecules is to enable novice users to rapidly get their data audible – by scaffolding their first steps into auditory display. All sonecules offer a description for the user as well as controls which can be adjusted easily and interactively to the selected data. Users are supported to get started as fast as possible using different sonification designs and they can even mix and match sonecules to create more complex aggregated sonecules. Advanced users are enabled to extend/modify any sonification design and thereby create new sonecules. The sonecules Python package is provided as open-source software, which enables others to contribute their own sonification designs as a sonecule – thus it seeds a growing/growable library of well-documented and easy-to-reuse sonifications designs. Sonecules is implemented in Python using mesonic as the sonification framework, which provides the path to rendering-platform agnostic sonifications.