Vowel synthesis using a vocal tract mapping interface and simulation study of inverse mapping

Abstract

We have developed a vocal tract mapping interface to produce vowel sounds. The interface provides an easy and effective setting of the vocal tract shape with a simple mouse click on its interface window. A vocal tract shape at the mouse position on the interface window is calculated by interpolation based on the prepared vocal tract shapes. In this paper, the features and advantages of the interface are shown through examples of the generated vowel sounds and vocal tract shapes. In addition, the inverse estimation of the vocal tract shape from formant frequencies is studied as one of its applications. In this method, the vocal tract shape is estimated by searching the point inside the region after determining a possible region that includes the solution. The possible region on the interface window is determined based on the changes in the formant frequencies. The usefulness of the proposed method is shown through simulation results.