Elements look different in MusicXML

• Apr 18, 2012 - 01:33

Why do elements look different in a MusicXML compared to the original score?

I used a 1.x score to export and view the attached examples in the trunk.

Using MuseScore 2.0 Nightly Build (5554) - Mac 10.7.3.

Attachment Size
MuseScore.png 39.59 KB
MusicXML.png 39.85 KB

Comments

So, trying to understand the report ...
You open a score in 1.2 (please don't use 1.x but the actual version number), and you save it in MSCZ and MusicXML, then you open these two files in MuseScore trunk (r5554) and did a screenshot of the two. Am I right ?

Which elements looks different? The note pitches looks the same. Only the time signature seems to be shifted left for the MusicXML import. Is that what you mean by "elements look different"?

Yes, I opened a score in the trunk and took screenshots of the MuseScore file, and the exported MusicXML.

If you look closely at all elements (zoom in), they are slightly different in position or size.

In reply to by chen lung

The current MuseScore MusicXML implementation does not guarantee exact positioning of elements. The MusicXML specification tries to enable this (but leaves to many things "implementation dependent").

Some positioning information is handled, but horizontal positioning is typically handled by the layout engine.

In reply to by Leon Vinken

That much makes perfect sense to me - I'd never expect everything to be exactly in the same place in all cases.

But I do wonder about the space between the clef and time signature in this example. Unless that time signature had been manually dragged before export, why would there even be any positioning information encoded in the MusicXML? And assuming that there is no positioning info in the MusicXML, why wouldn't it end up being positioned the same way whether loaded from a MSCZ file or a MusicXML file? Not a big deal, but I'm curious.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Currently in MuseScores MusicXML import/export, no layout information is encoded for either clef or time signature. Horizontal positioning of these elements is determined by Musescores layout engine only. Therefore I would not expect to see any difference between scores loaded from.mscx/.mscz or .xml/.mxl files. This is assuming no manual layout adjustment was done.

Note, however, that minor differences still may be found. Page size and margins are exported/imported and may be interpreted slightly different or suffer from rounding errors. The font used for the instrument name when loaded from xml seems to differ from the default font etc.

Other than entering notes, I did nothing else to the score.

I produced a score in 2.0 Nightly Build (5559), produced a PDF, exported a MusicXML, opened that and produced a PDF. Other than the Tempo Text, both PDFs seem to appear identical.

I produced a score in 1.2, opened it in 2.0 Nightly Build (5559), produced a PDF, exported a MusicXML, opened that and produced a PDF. There are differences in the PDFs.

Using Mac 10.7.3.

Attachment Size
1.2.zip 62.24 KB
5559.zip 61.3 KB

Here is another example: The spacing between the note head and augmentation dots differs - also the instrument name.

The MSCZ was produced in 1.2, whilst the MusicXML and PNGs were in 2.0.

Using MuseScore 2.0 Nightly Build (3d55d86) - Mac 10.7.5.

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