README.md

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# Introduction 
Welcome to the "NOTSOFAR-1: Distant Meeting Transcription with a Single Device" Challenge.

This repo contains the baseline system code for the NOTSOFAR-1 Challenge.

- For more information about NOTSOFAR, visit [CHiME's official challenge website](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/index)
- [Register](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/submission) to participate.
- [Baseline system description](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/baseline).
- Contact us: join the `chime-8-notsofar` channel on the [CHiME Slack](https://join.slack.com/t/chime-fey5388/shared_invite/zt-1oha0gedv-JEUr1mSztR7~iK9AxM4HOA), or open a [GitHub issue](https://github.com/microsoft/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge/issues). 

### 📊 Baseline Results on NOTSOFAR dev-set-1

Values are presented in `tcpWER / tcORC-WER (session count)` format.
<br>
As mentioned in the [official website](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/index#tracks), 
systems are ranked based on the speaker-attributed 
[tcpWER](https://github.com/fgnt/meeteval/blob/main/doc/tcpwer.md)
, while the speaker-agnostic [tcORC-WER](https://github.com/fgnt/meeteval) serves as a supplementary metric for analysis.
<br>
We include analysis based on a selection of hashtags from our [metadata](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/data#metadata), providing insights into how different conditions affect system performance.



|                      | Single-Channel        | Multi-Channel         |
|----------------------|-----------------------|-----------------------|
| All Sessions         | **46.8** / 38.5 (177) | **32.4** / 26.7 (106) |
| #NaturalMeeting      | 47.6 / 40.2 (30)      | 32.3 / 26.2 (18)      |
| #DebateOverlaps      | 54.9 / 44.7 (39)      | 38.0 / 31.4 (24)      |
| #TurnsNoOverlap      | 32.4 / 29.7 (10)      | 21.2 / 18.8 (6)       |
| #TransientNoise=high | 51.0 / 43.7 (10)      | 33.6 / 29.1 (5)       |
| #TalkNearWhiteboard  | 55.4 / 43.9 (40)      | 39.9 / 31.2 (22)      |







# Project Setup
The following steps will guide you through setting up the project on your machine. <br>

### Windows Users
This project is compatible with **Linux** environments. Windows users can refer to [Docker](#docker) or 
[Devcontainer](#devcontainer) sections. <br>
Alternatively, install WSL2 by following the [WSL2 Installation Guide](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install), then install Ubuntu 20.04 from the [Microsoft Store](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/ubuntu-2004-lts/9n6svws3rx71?activetab=pivot:overviewtab). <br>

## Cloning the Repository

Clone the `NOTSOFAR1-Challenge` repository from GitHub. Open your terminal and run the following command:

```bash

sudo apt-get install git

cd path/to/your/projects/directory

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge.git

```


## Setting up the environment

### Conda

#### Step 1: Install Conda

Conda is a package manager that is used to install Python and other dependencies.<br>
To install Miniconda, which is a minimal version of Conda, run the following commands:

```bash

miniconda_dir="$HOME/miniconda3"

script="Miniconda3-latest-Linux-$(uname -m).sh"

wget --tries=3 "https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/${script}"

bash "${script}" -b -p "${miniconda_dir}"

export PATH="${miniconda_dir}/bin:$PATH"

````
*** You may change the `miniconda_dir` variable to install Miniconda in a different directory.





#### Step 2: Create a Conda Environment 



Conda Environments are used to isolate Python dependencies. <br> 

To set it up, run the following commands:



```bash

source "/path/to/conda/dir/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"

conda create --name notsofar python=3.10 -y

conda activate notsofar 

cd /path/to/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

pip install --upgrade setuptools wheel Cython fasttext-wheel

pip install -r requirements.txt

conda install ffmpeg -c conda-forge -y

```



### PIP



#### Step 1: Install Python 3.10



Python 3.10 is required to run the project. To install it, run the following commands:



```bash

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa -y

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3.10

```



#### Step 2: Set Up the Python Virtual Environment



Python virtual environments are used to isolate Python dependencies. <br> 

To set it up, run the following commands:



```bash

sudo apt-get install python3.10-venv

python3.10 -m venv /path/to/virtualenvs/NOTSOFAR

source /path/to/virtualenvs/NOTSOFAR/bin/activate

```



#### Step 3: Install Python Dependencies



Navigate to the cloned repository and install the required Python dependencies:



```bash

cd /path/to/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

pip install --upgrade setuptools wheel Cython fasttext-wheel

sudo apt-get install python3.10-dev ffmpeg build-essential

pip install -r requirements.txt

```



### Docker



Refer to the `Dockerfile` in the project's root for dependencies setup. To use Docker, ensure you have Docker installed on your system and configured to use Linux containers.



### Devcontainer

With the provided `devcontainer.json` you can run and work on the project in a [devctonainer](https://containers.dev/) using, for example, the [Dev Containers VSCode Extension](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/containers).





# Running evaluation - the inference pipeline

The following command will download the **entire dev-set** of the recorded meeting dataset and run the inference pipeline

according to selected configuration. The default is configured to `--config-name dev_set_1_mc_debug` for quick debugging, 

running on a single session with the Whisper 'tiny' model.

```bash

cd /path/to/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge

python run_inference.py

```



To run on all multi-channel or single-channel dev-set sessions, use the following commands respectively:

```bash

python run_inference.py --config-name full_dev_set_mc

python run_inference.py --config-name full_dev_set_sc

```

The first time `run_inference.py` runs, it will automatically download these required models and datasets from blob storage:





1. The development set of the meeting dataset (dev-set) will be stored in the `artifacts/meeting_data` directory.

2. The CSS models required to run the inference pipeline will be stored in the `artifacts/css_models` directory. 



Outputs will be written to the `artifacts/outputs` directory.







The `session_query` argument found in the yaml config file (e.g. `configs/inference/inference_v1.yaml`) offers more control over filtering meetings.

Note that to submit results on the dev-set, you must evaluate on the full set (`full_dev_set_mc` or `full_dev_set_sc`) and no filtering must be performed.





# Integrating your own models 

The inference pipeline is modular, designed for easy research and extension.

Begin by exploring the following components:

- **Continuous Speech Separation (CSS)**: See `css_inference` in `css.py` . We provide a model pre-trained on NOTSOFAR's simulated training dataset, as well as inference and training code. For more information, refer to the [CSS section](#running-css-continuous-speech-separation-training).

- **Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)**: See `asr_inference` in `asr.py`. The baseline implementation relies on [Whisper](https://github.com/openai/whisper). 

- **Speaker Diarization**: See `diarization_inference` in `diarization.py`. The baseline implementation relies on the [NeMo toolkit](https://github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo).



### Training datasets

For training and fine-tuning your models, NOTSOFAR offers the **simulated training set** and the training portion of the
**recorded meeting dataset**. Refer to the `download_simulated_subset` and `download_meeting_subset` functions in 
[utils/azure_storage.py](https://github.com/microsoft/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge/blob/main/utils/azure_storage.py#L109), 
or the [NOTSOFAR-1 Datasets](#notsofar-1-datasets---download-instructions) section.


# Running CSS (continuous speech separation) training

## 1. Local training on a data sample for development and debugging
The following command will run CSS training on the 10-second simulated training data sample in `sample_data/css_train_set`.
```bash

cd /path/to/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge

python run_training_css_local.py

```

## 2. Training on the full simulated training dataset

### Step 1: Download the simulated training dataset
You can use the `download_simulated_subset` function in 
[utils/azure_storage.py](https://github.com/microsoft/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge/blob/main/utils/azure_storage.py)
to download the training dataset from blob storage.
You have the option to download either the complete dataset, comprising almost 1000 hours, or a smaller, 200-hour subset.

Examples:
```python

ver='v1.5'  # this should point to the lateset and greatest version of the dataset.



# Option 1: Download the training and validation sets of the entire 1000-hour dataset. 

train_set_path = download_simulated_subset(

    version=ver, volume='1000hrs', subset_name='train', destination_dir=os.path.join(my_dir, 'train'))



val_set_path = download_simulated_subset(

    version=ver, volume='1000hrs', subset_name='val', destination_dir=os.path.join(my_dir, 'val'))





# Option 2: Download the training and validation sets of the smaller 200-hour dataset.

train_set_path = download_simulated_subset(

    version=ver, volume='200hrs', subset_name='train', destination_dir=os.path.join(my_dir, 'train'))



val_set_path = download_simulated_subset(

    version=ver, volume='200hrs', subset_name='val', destination_dir=os.path.join(my_dir, 'val'))

```

### Step 2: Run CSS training
Once you have downloaded the training dataset, you can run CSS training on it using the `run_training_css` function in `css/training/train.py`.
The `main` function in `run_training_css.py` provides an entry point with `conf`, `data_root_in`, and `data_root_out` arguments that you can use to configure the run.

It is important to note that the setup and provisioning of a compute cloud environment for running this training process is the responsibility of the user. Our code is designed to support **PyTorch's Distributed Data Parallel (DDP)** framework. This means you can leverage multiple GPUs across several nodes efficiently.

### Step 3: Customizing the CSS model
To add a new CSS model, you need to do the following:
1. Have your model implement the same interface as our baseline CSS model class `ConformerCssWrapper` which is located
in `css/training/conformer_wrapper.py`. Note that in addition to the `forward` method, it must also implement the 
`separate`, `stft`, and `istft` methods. The latter three methods will be used in the inference pipeline and to 
calculate the loss when training.
2. Create a configuration dataclass for your model. Add it as a member of the `TrainCfg` dataclass in 
`css/training/train.py`.
3. Add your model to the `get_model` function in `css/training/train.py`.



# NOTSOFAR-1 Datasets - Download Instructions
This section is for those specifically interested in downloading the NOTSOFAR datasets.<br>
The NOTSOFAR-1 Challenge provides two datasets: a recorded meeting dataset and a simulated training dataset. <br>
The datasets are stored in Azure Blob Storage, to download them, you will need to setup [AzCopy](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-use-azcopy-v10#download-azcopy).

You can use either the python utilities in `utils/azure_storage.py` or the `AzCopy` command to download the datasets as described below.



### Meeting Dataset for Benchmarking and Training

The NOTSOFAR-1 Recorded Meeting Dataset is a collection of 315 meetings, each averaging 6 minutes, recorded across 30 conference rooms with 4-8 attendees, featuring a total of 35 unique speakers. This dataset captures a broad spectrum of real-world acoustic conditions and conversational dynamics.

### Download

To download the dataset, you can call the python function `download_meeting_subset` within `utils/azure_storage.py`.

Alternatively, using AzCopy CLI, set these arguments and run the following command:

- `subset_name`: name of split to download (`dev_set` / `eval_set` / `train_set`).
- `version`: version to download (`240103g` / etc.). Use the latest version. 
- `datasets_path` - path to the directory where you want to download the benchmarking dataset (destination directory must exist). <br>

Train, dev, and eval sets for the NOTSOFAR challenge are released in stages. 
See release timeline on the [NOTSOFAR page](https://www.chimechallenge.org/current/task2/index#dates).
See doc in `download_meeting_subset` function in 
[utils/azure_storage.py](https://github.com/microsoft/NOTSOFAR1-Challenge/blob/main/utils/azure_storage.py#L109) 
for latest available versions.

```bash

azcopy copy https://notsofarsa.blob.core.windows.net/benchmark-datasets/<subset_name>/<version>/MTG <datasets_path>/benchmark --recursive

```

Example:
```bash

azcopy copy https://notsofarsa.blob.core.windows.net/benchmark-datasets/dev_set/240415.2_dev/MTG . --recursive

````


### Simulated Training Dataset

The NOTSOFAR-1 Training Dataset is a 1000-hour simulated training dataset, synthesized with enhanced authenticity for real-world generalization, incorporating 15,000 real acoustic transfer functions.

### Download


To download the dataset, you can call the python function `download_simulated_subset` within `utils/azure_storage.py`.
Alternatively, using AzCopy CLI, set these arguments and run the following command:

- `version`: version of the train data to download (`v1.1` / `v1.2` / `v1.3` / `1.4` / `1.5` / etc.).
See doc in `download_simulated_subset` function in `utils/azure_storage.py` for latest available versions.
- `volume` - volume of the train data to download (`200hrs` / `1000hrs`)
- `subset_name`: train data type to download (`train` / `val`)
- `datasets_path` - path to the directory where you want to download the simulated dataset (destination directory must exist). <br>


```bash

azcopy copy https://notsofarsa.blob.core.windows.net/css-datasets/<version>/<volume>/<subset_name> <datasets_path>/benchmark --recursive 

```

Example:
```bash

azcopy copy https://notsofarsa.blob.core.windows.net/css-datasets/v1.5/200hrs/train . --recursive

```


## Data License
This public data is currently licensed for use exclusively in the NOTSOFAR challenge event. 
We appreciate your understanding that it is not yet available for academic or commercial use. 
However, we are actively working towards expanding its availability for these purposes. 
We anticipate a forthcoming announcement that will enable broader and more impactful use of this data. Stay tuned for updates. 
Thank you for your interest and patience.


# 🤝 Contribute

Please refer to our [contributing guide](CONTRIBUTING.md) for more information on how to contribute!