# Differences of ACI values between seewave and soundecology # The package *seewave* (Sueur et al. 2008) version 1.7.0 introduced the function ACI() to calculate the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI). By then I was working on the last tests of my version of a function that would also calculate the ACI. So, I decided to keep my version in *soundecology* and let the community choose which version worked best for them. The results of the functions do not match between the packages. I have received this question a few times, so I thought best to write a brief document about it since more people may wonder the same. After some tests, it seems that the differences are due to different assumptions or default values. The only way I can get the functions of both packages to agree was to set *nbwindows* in ACI() to a comparable value (duration of the file in seconds/seconds in each clump): ```{r results='show', message=FALSE, warning=FALSE} library(seewave) library(soundecology) data(tropicalsound) duration <- length(tropicalsound@left)/tropicalsound@samp.rate # 20 seconds duration ACI(tropicalsound, nbwindows=(duration/5)) acoustic_complexity(tropicalsound) # j is set to 5 by default ``` ### Another example ### I also tried with a 50 second-long file (not included in this vignette): ``` sound1<-readWave("LINE_2003-10-30_20_00_34.wav") duration <- length(sound1@left)/sound1@samp.rate # 50 seconds ACI(sound1, nbwindows=(duration/5)) > 1566.69 acoustic_complexity(sound1) # j is set to 5 by default > 1567.414 ``` Changing the cluster size *j* to 10 sec: ``` ACI(sound1, nbwindows=(duration/10)) >783.8312 acoustic_complexity(sound1, j=10) > 784.0986 ``` The difference between the results from each package seems to come from how each function uses the clumping argument, *j*, which is set to 5 seconds as a default in both the SoundscapeMeter software and *soundecology*. ## References ## Sueur J., Aubin T., Simonis C. (2008). Seewave: a free modular tool for sound analysis and synthesis. Bioacoustics, 18: 213-226. - - - Vignette "Differences of ACI values between seewave and soundecology" by LJ Villanueva-Rivera *Version 1.0 (21 December 2015)*