Virtual Audio Systems

Abstract

To be immersed in a virtual environment, the user must be presented with plausible sensory input including auditory cues. A virtual (three-dimensional) audio display aims to allow the user to perceive the position of a sound source at an arbitrary position in three-dimensional space despite the fact that the generated sound may be emanating from a fixed number of loudspeakers at fixed positions in space or a pair of headphones. The foundation of virtual audio rests on the development of technology to present auditory signals to the listener's ears so that these signals are perceptually equivalent to those the listener would receive in the environment being simulated. This paper reviews the human perceptual and technical literature relevant to the modeling and generation of accurate audio displays for virtual environments. Approaches to acoustical environment simulation are summarized and the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches are presented.

The perception of egocentric distances in virtual environments - A review

“…Articles presenting mathematical models or correction algorithms are not considered in this review, as it is focused on empirical user studies. Further, only research on visual virtual environments is discussed here; for distance perception in auditory virtual environments, see, for example, Kapralos et al [2008], Loomis et al [1999], or Zahorik et al [2005; for distance perception in visual augmented reality, see, for example, Kruijff et al [2010] or Swan II et al [2007].…”

Using Virtual Reality to Assess the Street Crossing Behavior of Pedestrians With Simulated Macular Degeneration at a Roundabout

“…To include both auditory and visual cues in our environment, we added a three-dimensional (3D) acoustic subsystem capable of synthesizing the spatialized sound associated with moving vehicles in real-time. Our spatialized audio rendering uses a nonindividual head-related transfer function (HRTF) (Begault, 1994;Kapralos et al, 2008), derived from the anthropomorphic audio logical research mannequin KEMAR (Knowles Electronics) (Gardner and Martin, 1995).…”

Instant BRIR Acquisition for Auditory Events in Audio Augmented Reality Using Finger Snaps

“…It has been shown that the spatial separation of simultaneously talking speakers improves their intelligibility, a phenomenon known as the "cocktail party effect" [18]. In addition to the implications on speech intelligibility, the externalisation is also considered to "add a pleasing quality" to virtual sounds [19]. In the present work the spatialisation is performed by applying a separate BRIR to each signal.…”