Efficient Auralization for Moving Sources and Receiver

We address the problem of generating smooth, spatialized sound for interactive multimedia applications, such as VoIPenabled virtual environments and video games. Such applications have moving sound sources as well as moving receiver (MS-MR). As a receiver moves, it receives sound emitted from prior positions of a given source. We present an efficient algorithm that can correctly model auralization for MS-MR scenarios by performing sound propagation and signal processing from multiple source positions. Our formulation only needs to compute a portion of the response from various source positions using sound propagation algorithms and can be efficiently combined with signal processing techniques to generate smooth, spatialized audio. Moreover, we present an efficient signal processing pipeline, based on block convolution, which makes it easy to combine different portions of the response from different source positions. Finally, we show that our algorithm can be easily combined with well-known geometric sound propagation methods for efficient auralization in MS-MR scenarios, with a low computational overhead (less than 25%) over auralization for static sources and a static receiver (SS-SR) scenarios.

[1]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Fast and Accurate Geometric Sound Propagation Using Visibility Computations , 2011 .

[2]  Tapio Lokki,et al.  Creating Interactive Virtual Acoustic Environments , 1999 .

[3]  K. Ressler,et al.  Virtual reality exposure therapy using a virtual Iraq: case report. , 2008, Journal of traumatic stress.

[4]  John Mourjopoulos,et al.  Hierarchical Perceptual Mixing , 2009 .

[5]  Mendel Kleiner,et al.  Auralization-An Overview , 1993 .

[6]  Ravish Mehra,et al.  Precomputed wave simulation for real-time sound propagation of dynamic sources in complex scenes , 2010, SIGGRAPH 2010.

[7]  George Drettakis,et al.  Progressive perceptual audio rendering of complex scenes , 2007, SI3D.

[8]  Tapio Lokki,et al.  Frequency domain acoustic radiance transfer for real-time auralization , 2009 .

[9]  Tapio Lokki,et al.  The room acoustic rendering equation. , 2007, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[10]  Thomas Funkhouser,et al.  Survey of Methods for Modeling Sound Propagation in Interactive Virtual Environment Systems , 2003 .

[11]  Geraldine Fitzpatrick,et al.  Toward accessible 3D virtual environments for the blind and visually impaired , 2008, DIMEA.

[12]  Michael Vorländer,et al.  Virtual Reality System with Integrated Sound Field Simulation and Reproduction , 2007, EURASIP J. Adv. Signal Process..

[13]  Nicolas Tsingos,et al.  Precomputing Geometry-Based Reverberation Effects for Games , 2009 .

[14]  Jont B. Allen,et al.  Image method for efficiently simulating small‐room acoustics , 1976 .

[15]  D. Botteldooren.  Finite‐difference time‐domain simulation of low‐frequency room acoustic problems , 1995 .

[16]  Nicolas Tsingos,et al.  A VERSATILE SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FOR VIRTUAL AUDIO SIMULATIONS , 2001 .

[17]  Niels Henze,et al.  Tangible User Interface for the Exploration of Auditory City Maps , 2007, HAID.

[18]  Greg Turk,et al.  Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics and games , 2007, I3D 2007.

[19]  Sophia Antipolis,et al.  SCALABLE PERCEPTUAL MIXING AND FILTERING OF AUDIO SIGNALS USING AN AUGMENTED SPECTRAL REPRESENTATION , 2005 .

[20]  M. Vorländer.  Simulation of the transient and steady‐state sound propagation in rooms using a new combined ray‐tracing/image‐source algorithm , 1989 .

[21]  Murray Hodgson,et al.  Improved algorithms and methods for room sound-field prediction by acoustical radiosity in arbitrary polyhedral rooms. , 2004, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[22]  Michael Herczeg,et al.  Audioworld: A Spatial Audio Tool for Acoustic and Cognitive Learning , 2010, HAID.

[23]  Jeremy R. Cooperstock,et al.  Multimodal Telepresence Systems , 2011, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.

[24]  Bruce L. Mann,et al.  The evolution of multimedia sound , 2008, Comput. Educ..

[25]  R. Kouyoumjian,et al.  A uniform geometrical theory of diffraction for an edge in a perfectly conducting surface , 1974 .

[26]  Wolfgang Straßer,et al.  Multi-resolution sound rendering , 2004, SIGGRAPH '04.

[27]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  Direct-to-Indirect Acoustic Radiance Transfer , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

[28]  Stephen A. Brewster,et al.  Audio Bubbles: Employing Non-speech Audio to Support Tourist Wayfinding , 2009, HAID.

[29]  A. Krokstad,et al.  Calculating the acoustical room response by the use of a ray tracing technique , 1968 .

[30]  Rahul Narain,et al.  Efficient and accurate sound propagation using adaptive rectangular decomposition. , 2009, IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics.

[31]  Dinesh Manocha,et al.  RESound: interactive sound rendering for dynamic virtual environments , 2009, ACM Multimedia.

[32]  Thomas Funkhouser,et al.  A beam tracing method for interactive architectural acoustics. , 2004, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[33]  Nicolas Tsingos.  Artifact-free asynchronous geometry-based audio rendering , 2001, 2001 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings (Cat. No.01CH37221).

[34]  H. Medwin,et al.  Impulse studies of double diffraction: A discrete Huygens interpretation , 1982 .

[35]  Bill Kapralos,et al.  The sonel mapping acoustical modeling method , 2006 .

[36]  Elizabeth M. Wenzel,et al.  A software-based system for interactive spatial sound synthesis , 2000 .