Hi all...
As I have written before, there seems to be a big push to apply
available 3D audio solutions in current VR and gaming developments. The
reason is simple: Any VR solution which pretends to be realistic and
immersive will have to present seemingly < natural > optical and
acoustical scenes, which means in 3D. And head-tracking has to be
applied to both video and audio, as you should be able to move and
interact in a VR world. (Next step could be to include VR gloves for
interaction, BTW. Some AR glasses already allow sophisticated
interactions like typing on a virtual keyboard, etc.)
Oculus VR has presented its newest VR headset prototype ("Crescent
Bay"), including headphones and 3D audio support.
http://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-connect-2014/
Citings:
Audio is essential for delivering immersive virtual reality. Along
with the integrated audio in Crescent Bay, we're working to build the
hardware and software that developers need to create high-fidelity VR
audio experiences for the Rift.
People locate objects in the world using cues that arise from the
interaction of sound with the scene, combined with the body of the
listener (HRTFs) and head tracking. A great audio engine for VR has to
reproduce these cues to fully convince the human perceptual system.
we've licensed RealSpace3D's audio technology,
After some basic research, I have seen that company behind RealSpace3D
has also designed a new form of spherical array microphone - as part of
an "Audio Panoramic Camera", so say as part of an AV camera.
http://visisonics.com/technology
VisiSonics' RealSpace^(TM) Panoramic Audio Camera captures a
synchronized image of vision and sound. This product then formats that
data stream to represent 360 degrees of surround sound sampled at
44kHz and a frame synchronized high-resolution panoramic image at 30
frames per second.
With this product, users can capture, store, retrieve and process
real-time integrated and synchronized audio and visual information.
The auditory scene can be decomposed into its spherical harmonic
components up to order 7. This allows fir increased spatial isolation
of acoustic sources in the environment. Further, the scene can also be
decomposed into filtered plane-waves, and can be beamformed into
multiple real-time beams.
Currently VisiSonics RealSpace^(TM) offers both Panoramic 5/64 and
15/64 Panoramic Audio Camera configurations.
The VisiSonics 15/64 RealSpace^(TM) Panoramic Audio Camera combines
15video cameras with 64 microphones in a sphere that is approximately
the size of a human head.
This is quite big for a spherical array microphone, so how does this
actually work? (I don't believe that this can be a form of "big
Eigenmike", equipped with 64 capsules.)
It seems that VisiSonics is able to measure/use personalised HRTF data
sets, in (probably) two ways:
VisiSonics has a proprietary and patented (pat. Pending no. 7,720,229)
technology for creating accurate personalized biometric measurements
that can provide an optimal listening experience for anyone using the
RealSpace^(TM) 3D sound technology with existing earphones.
VisiSonics patented system can create a personalized HRTF base in a
fraction of a second. Two methodologies enable highly scalable and
deployable provide HRTF measurements, either at the point of sales or
at another venue. The RealSpace^(TM) measurement needs only to be done
once to create a reusable and universally applicable delivery product
of precise surround sound through a digital stereo playback system.
Finally, here some 2010 paper written by one of the company founders:
http://icad.org/Proceedings/2010/O%27DonovanDuraiswami2010.pdf
Interesting stuff and lots of novelties, how it seems.
Best regards,
Stefan
P.S.: Of course, you could also design a HMD without display...
Call this a HT headphone or < HT headset >, and IF somebody could also
record and offer < some > 3D audio recordings (say in Auro-3D, or even
in some "to be agreed" Ambisonics/HOA format...), this could become
quite interesting. Obviously, "quite interesting" is not how the PR
department of Oculus or FB would call all this. You would "leave stereo
and plain old 5.1 surround far behind" you, and proceed to
"natural-sounding and immersive 3D audio recordings". Imagine how a <
great performance > would sound in a real < concert hall >, so to
speak... O:-)
P.S. 2: Dead White Man's Music isn't dead yet, finally... This is
because there is some great stuff around, which some day will be used by
Facebook and Oculus VR Inc. as background music for some really < great
> and < immersive > VR game. The acoustical background will sound
great, too. (In marketing, it is no damage to repeat such a word as many
times as possible! -;-)
They were only able to do so because sursound members never dared to
apply their significant insight in 3D audio technologies in real life,
which they could have done wayyyy earlier.... (than FB...) :-X
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