Automatic Staff/System Spacing

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Knut
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by Knut »

jan wrote: 03 Apr 2017, 07:27 Regarding clefs for condensed scores: another solution is to slightly rotate the clefs.
So you don't mess up the clef style by mixing different fonts.
In this video the clefs from the two top staves were rotated by 0.06° with a JW Lua script in Finale.
It's a bit tricky to do in Finale's Shape Designer which only has a rotate for arrowheads, but very easy with a script as it supports the rotate command for all (!) elements - seems to be a hidden Finale feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6qnFet9Yqw
Wow! I didn't know this was even possible to do with a script.

While I certainly appreciate the ingenuousness of the implementation, I don't think rotating only a few of the clefs in a score would look particularly good. Whether or not this would be appropriate would also largely depend on the clef design. I think I would advise against it for those reasons, and I would say that it's up to the font designer to facilitate this kind of staff spacing in the design of certain symbols.
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jan
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Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by jan »

Knut wrote:I don't think rotating only a few of the clefs in a score would look particularly good
No, of course not, especially when they still collide like in the video. It was just a demonstration that it is possible to have both sorts of clefs in a score at the same time.
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jan
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Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by jan »

After some time I have uploaded another test video that shows a nice distribution of the staves after the staff layout optimization plugin has been run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9KaxtMingU

Two scenarios are shown:
- a typical unoptimized page with some overlappings
- a completely crunched page ;-) (starting in 1m:04s in the video)

Both result, of course, in the same optimization, as the initial layout is not relevant, but only the amount of available space on the page.
Each staff gets its individual size dependent on the staff's space requirements (as can be seen in the staff distance EVPUs in the video).

Another improvement could be to compare these space requirements when the whole score has been processed and harmonize the distance within the grouped staves so that they have the same distance either on each page or at least on two adjacent pages, so that there is no visual jump between two pages. (This feature is not included yet).
Knut
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by Knut »

This looks awesome, Jan!

Aside from the potential improvement you mention, which would be a very nice addition indeed, I would love to see the ability to specify distances to the top and bottom margins, as well as the ability to decrease the space between single-line (percussion) staves.

Congrats on the stellar work so far!
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John Ruggero
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Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by John Ruggero »

I agree. This is a fantastic new resource.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

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jan
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Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by jan »

Thanks, Knut and John.
And yes, of course, there are some parameters available like top/bottom margin distance, standard single line (i.e. percussion staves) and 5-lines distance and an extra distance factor for the (larger) group distance.
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jan
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Joined: 22 Jun 2016, 08:29

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by jan »

I have made another test file created with the automatic staff spacing plugin.
The "Before" PDF has the original Finale output, the other PDF the output after processing the file with the plugin (and other plugins).

https://elbsound.studio/download.php?f= ... Before.pdf
https://elbsound.studio/download.php?f= ... 0Score.pdf

The algorithm now includes an "optical correction" which slightly reduces the distance if two staves only share a very small area where they get close to each other. In the PDF this is for example the Violin 1 staff and the measure number staff above. If the standard distance had been used (as in all other staves), they would have been a bit further apart.

Any comments regarding the staff spacing and staff sizing are still very welcome.
(Other comments on the score are not necessary...)

If anyone is interested, here is also a live video of how the score was created in Finale from scratch (20 minutes):
https://elbsound.studio/engraving-challenge.php
Christof Schardt
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Joined: 17 Jun 2016, 10:00

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by Christof Schardt »

jan wrote: 10 Aug 2017, 21:16 If anyone is interested, here is also a live video of how the score was created in Finale from scratch (20 minutes):
Impressive!
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odod
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Joined: 25 Nov 2015, 15:10

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by odod »

Craaazy !!!
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OCTO
Posts: 1742
Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 06:52
Location: Sweden

Re: Automatic Staff/System Spacing

Post by OCTO »

Hello.
Does this work to fix:
- lyrics
- stave distances?

Also, is it available for Mac, and how can it be downloaded?
Freelance Composer. Self-Publisher.
Finale 27.3 • Sibelius 2023.5• MuseScore 4+ • Logic Pro X+ • Ableton Live 11+ • Digital Performer 10+ /// MacOS Monterey (secondary in use systems: Fedora 35, Windows 10)
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