Methods, systems, and computer readable media for simulating sound propagation in large scenes using equivalent sources

Abstract

The subject matter described herein includes an approach for wave-based sound propagation suitable for large, open spaces spanning hundreds of meters, with a small memory footprint. The scene is decomposed into disjoint rigid objects. The free-field acoustic behavior of each object is captured by a compact per-object transfer-function relating the amplitudes of a set of incoming equivalent sources to outgoing equivalent sources. Pairwise acoustic interactions between objects are cornuted analytically, yielding compact inter-object transfer functions. The global sound field accounting for all orders of interaction is computed using these transfer functions. The runtime system uses fast summation over the outgoing equivalent source amplitudes for all objects to auralize the sound field at a moving listener in real-time. We demonstrate realistic acoustic effects such as diffraction, low-passed sound behind obstructions, focusing, scattering, high-order reflections, and echoes, on a variety of scenes.