3D Audio and Virtual Acoustical Environment Synthesis

Abstract

This chapter discusses the problem and solutions of synthesizing 3D (three dimensional) audio and complex virtual acoustic environments where heavy computation load is required for 3D positioning of multiple sound sources and their respective reflections. Spatial feature extraction and a regularization model for measured head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) are reviewed. For some functional representations of the HRTF, fast algorithms are derived. These fast algorithms can reduce the computational burden by an order of magnitude compared with conventional methods. Several computing architectures are illustrated for the implementation of virtual acoustic environment synthesis.