Efficient Hybrid Virtual Room Acoustic Modelling

This thesis investigates approaches to virtual room acoustic modelling and auralisation in order to a develop hybrid modelling solution that is capable of efficient and accurate simulation of enclosed sound propagation. Emphasis is placed on the advantages and disadvantages of state of the art numerical and geometric acoustic modelling methods. Numerical methods have been shown to preserve important sound wave characteristics such as diffraction and room modes, and are considered more accurate for low frequency acoustic modelling than geometric techniques which fail to preserve such wave effects. However, the implementation of numerical acoustic models inherently requires large computational effort compared to more efficient geometric techniques such as ray-tracing. This is particularly problematic for simulations of large-scale 3D acoustic environments and for high spatio-temporal sampling rates. A novel acoustic modelling solution is presented, which seeks to circumvent the disadvantageous computational requirements of 3D numerical models while producing a suitable approximation to low frequency sound behaviour. This modelling technique incorporates multiple planar cross-sectional 2D Finite Difference schemes that are utilised in combination to synthesise low frequency wave propagation throughout the target acoustic field. In this way a subset of prominent low frequency sound wave characteristics may be emulated with low computational cost compared to 3D numerical schemes. These low-frequency results can then be combined with the high-frequency output from efficient geometric simulations to create a hybrid model providing accurate broadband results at a relatively low computational cost. Investigation of room impulse response rendering for a series of theoretic and real spaces demonstrates advantages of this new hybrid acoustic modelling technique over purely ray-based methods in terms of low frequency accuracy, and over 3D numerical methods in terms of computational efficiency. Conclusions are drawn from objective measurements obtained from simulation results of the virtual models produced. Results demonstrate the applicability of the novel hybrid approach to the enhancement of purely ray-based room impulse response rendering by which a more realistic representation of low frequency wave phenomena may be simulated in an efficient manner, improving the theoretical accuracy of objective and audible results. This study contributes towards research and design of high-speed, interactive virtual acoustic simulations appropriate for industrial and creative virtual reality applications.