Rhino — .NET Quick Start

Platforms

• Linux (x86_64)
• macOS (x86_64)
• Windows (x86_64)
• BeagleBone
• NVIDIA Jetson Nano
• Raspberry Pi (2, 3, 4)

Requirements

• Picovoice Account & AccessKey

.NET Framework 4.6.1+ / .NET Standard 2.0+ / .NET Core 3.1+:

• Windows (x86_64)

.NET Core 2.0+ / .NET Core 3.1+:

• Linux (x86_64)
• macOS (x86_64)

.NET Core 3.1+:

• BeagleBone
• NVIDIA Jetson Nano
• Raspberry Pi (2, 3, 4)

Picovoice Account & AccessKey

Signup or Login to Picovoice Console to get your AccessKey. Make sure to keep your AccessKey secret.

Quick Start

Setup

1. Install .NET.

2. Install the Rhino NuGet package in Visual Studio or using the .NET CLI:

dotnet add package Rhino

Usage

Create an instance of Rhino that infers intent from spoken commands within a given context:

using Pv;

Rhino rhino = Rhino.Create(
        "${ACCESS_KEY}",
        "${CONTEXT_FILE_PATH}");

Pass in frames of audio to the .Process function:

short[] GetNextAudioFrame()
{
    // ...
}

while(true)
{
    bool isFinalized = rhino.Process(GetNextAudioFrame());
    if(isFinalized)
    {
        Inference inference = rhino.GetInference();
        if(inference.IsUnderstood)
        {
            string intent = inference.Intent;
            Dictionary<string, string> slots = inference.Slots;
            // .. take action based on inferred intent and slot values
        }
    }
}

Custom Contexts

Create custom contexts on Picovoice Console using the Rhino Grammar. Download the custom context file (.rhn) and pass the path into the Rhino .Create method.

Non-English Languages

Use the corresponding model file (.pv) to process non-English contexts. The model files for all supported languages are available on the Rhino GitHub repository.

Pass in the model file using the modelPath input argument to change the detection language:

Rhino rhino = Rhino.Create(
        "${ACCESS_KEY}",
        "${CONTEXT_FILE_PATH}",
        modelPath: "${MODEL_FILE_PATH}");

Demo

For the Rhino .NET SDK, we offer demo applications that demonstrate how to use the Speech-to-Intent engine on real-time audio streams (i.e. microphone input) and audio files.

Setup

1. Clone the Rhino repository from GitHub:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Picovoice/rhino.git

2. Build the demo:

cd rhino/demo/dotnet/RhinoDemo
dotnet build -c MicDemo.Release

Usage

Use the --help flag to see the usage options for the demo:

dotnet run -c MicDemo.Release -- --help

Ensure you have a working microphone connected to your system and run the following command to make inferences based on the given context file:

dotnet run -c MicDemo.Release -- --access_key ${ACCESS_KEY} --context_path ${CONTEXT_FILE_PATH}

For more information on our Rhino demos for .NET, head over to our GitHub repository.

Resources

Packages

• Rhino on NuGet

API

• Rhino .NET API Docs

GitHub

• Rhino .NET SDK on GitHub
• Rhino .NET Demos on GitHub

Benchmark

• Speech-to-Intent Benchmark

Further Reading

• Talking Chess: Adding Offline, Cross-Platform Voice Controls to Chess in .NET Core
• From GUI to VUI: Voice-Enabling a Cross-Platform .NET Desktop Application
• How We Added Raspberry Pi Support to Our .NET SDK

Videos

• Offline Wake Word Engine Running in .NET Core on Raspberry Pi
• Build a Voice-Controlled, Cross-Platform .NET Desktop Application
• Add Offline Voice Controls to a Cross-Platform .NET GUI