ANVIL - a generic annotation tool for multimodal dialogue

TLDR

Anvil is a tool for annotating audiovisual material that contains multimodal dialogue. Anvil enables annotation on multiple, freely definable layers by inserting time‑anchored elements with typed attribute‑value pairs, supports suprasegmental sequences and cross‑level links, is generic, platform‑independent, XML‑based, offers an intuitive GUI, and allows import of speech transcriptions and export of text and table data for statistical processing.

Abstract

Anvil is a tool for the annotation of audiovisual material containing multimodal dialogue. Annotation takes place on freely definable, multiple layers (tracks) by inserting time-anchored elements that hold a number of typed attribute-value pairs. Higher-level elements (suprasegmental) consist of a sequence of elements. Attributes contain symbols or cross-level links to arbitrary other elements. Anvil is highly generic (usable with different annotation schemes), platform-independent, XMLbased and fitted with an intuitive graphical user interface. For project integration, Anvil offers the import of speech transcription and export of text and table data for further statistical processing.