Improving the Perceived Sound Field Continuity Using Convolution of Impulse Sequences for Virtual Acoustics

听者对声场连续性的感知是实现高质量虚拟声学现实沉浸式体验的基础。声场中的任何不连续都可能变得明显，并可能导致听者的注意力从与虚拟世界的感知相关的体验上转移。听觉感知与其他形式的不匹配将导致每个参与者的沉浸式潜力进一步降低。在最近的探索资助期间，研究小组为虚拟声学图书馆(LVA)开发了一个复杂的搜索引擎，以管理包括在216个声学空间测量的10,000多个多声道房间脉冲响应(RIR)的数据。使用包含在LVA中的声学数据来呈现空间为听众创建了一种沉浸在与物理空间的实际声学共存的模拟房间中的感觉。从经过仔细测量的建筑空间“借用”高质量音响的能力，为在音乐和语音交流中使用声学虚拟现实开辟了前所未有的前景，但仍伴随着相当大的技术要求和挑战。在封闭空间的自然混响场中，听者的身临其境的声学印象是由于来自所有可能方向的大量反射：多个二次源一起近似于一个无限的辐射体。在虚拟环境中，挑战是实现由有限数量的离散扬声器产生的持续扩展的无缝声场的感知。我们的目标是使扬声器尽可能地不被听众检测到，并用相对较少的扬声器通道来模拟非常大量的虚拟信号源。这项研究计划的目标是利用信号处理和电声学创建透明、自然发声的声学虚拟现实。虚拟声学拓宽了建筑空间的功能，因为新的系统响应可能会在按下按钮时改变现有的声学条件。通过这项研究，我们的目标是最大限度地提高渲染声场中的自然感，防止用户检测到增强扬声器的存在。这是完善虚拟现实听觉质量的下一个关键步骤。虚拟声学的沉浸式设计将应用于自动驾驶汽车、深空旅行、音乐表演、家庭、录音棚和医疗设施，以提高福祉的质量。

The listener's perception of sound field continuity is fundamental to the goal of achieving a high-quality immersive experience in virtual acoustic reality. Any discontinuity in the sound field is likely to become noticeable and may cause the listener's attention to shift away from the experience associated with the awareness of the virtual world. A mismatch of the aural perception with other modalities will cause a further decrease in the immersive potential for every participant. In the recent discovery grant period the research team developed a sophisticated search engine for the Library of Virtual Acoustics (LVA) to manage data that include over 10,000 multichannel room-impulse-responses (RIRs) measured in 216 acoustic spaces. Rendering spaces using the acoustic data contained in the LVA creates for the listener an impression of being immersed in a simulated room that coexists within the actual acoustics of the physical space. The ability to "borrow" high-quality acoustics from carefully measured architectural spaces opens unprecedented perspectives for the use of acoustic virtual reality in the communication of music and speech, but still comes with considerable technological requirements and challenges. In the natural reverberant field of an enclosed space, a listener's immersive acoustic impression is due to a large number of reflections arriving from all possible directions: multiple secondary sources together approximating an infinite radiator. In a virtual environment, the challenge is to achieve the perception of a continuously expanding seamless sound field, when it is generated by a limited number of discrete loudspeakers. Our goal is to make the loudspeakers as undetectable to the listeners as possible, and to imitate a very large number of virtual sources with a relatively small number of loudspeaker channels. The goal of this research program is to create transparent, natural sounding acoustic virtual reality using signal processing and electroacoustics. Virtual acoustics widens the functionality of an architectural space as new system responses may alter the existing acoustic conditions at the push of a button. With this research we aim to maximize the illusion of naturalness in rendered sound fields, preventing users from detecting the presence of enhancing loudspeakers. It is the next critical step in perfecting the aural quality of virtual reality. Immersive design of virtual acoustics will be employed in autonomous vehicles, deep space travel, music performance, homes, recording studios, and medical facilities, to enhance quality of wellbeing.