Capturing and Rendering Three Dimensional Auditory Scenes

Ramani Duraiswami

Perceptual Interfaces and Reality Laboratory

University of Maryland, College Park

Date: Friday, February 10, 2006
Place: ESB 1001
Time: 2:00 pm — 3:00 pm (Reception to follow)

Abstract:
Humans are very good at discerning the spatial origin of sound using a mixture of monaural and binaural cues in disparate environments ranging from open spaces to small crowded rooms. This ability helps us to interact with others and the environment by sorting out individual sounds from a mixture, and helps us to survive by warning us of danger over a wider region of space compared to vision. These advantages of spatial sound are also potentially of benefit in the fields of human-computer interaction, teleconferencing and telepresence.

In this talk I will present an introduction to the problem of creating and acquiring spatial audio. While the talk will be mainly introductory, I will also present some recent research results in

1) developing a novel way for extremely fast acquisition of HRTFs for individuals, using a combination of scientific computation and ingenious experimentation
2) a technique for real-time acquisition and "image-based" rendering of soundscapes using multi-microphone acquisition using spherical microphone arrays (joint work with Dmitry Zotkin, Elena Grassi and Nail A. Gumerov)

RAMANI DURAISWAMI is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, at the University of Maryland. He directs research at the Perceptual Interfaces and Reality Laboratory there. Prior to coming to the University in 1998, he was Principal Scientist and Division Head at a small R&D company. He received a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in 1991, and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1985. His current research interests can broadly be categorized as lying in the three areas of

* Audio for Virtual Reality and Human Computer Interaction
* Scientific Computing (with a recent intense focus on the Fast Multipole Method)
* Computer Vision

Most research projects involve a mix of at least two of these areas, and all his work is derived from a desire to come up with usable solutions to problems that arise in applications. Because of this problem solving focus, his research is naturally inter-disciplinary, and there is no distinction between theory and practice, with a focus on theory and simulation on the one hand, and on significant "experimental" and "real" systems development on the other. Dr. Duraiswami is associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, and a Member of the Audio and Electroacoustics Technical Committee, of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. More information on Dr. Duraiswami's research and publications can be obtained from http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~ramani

Host: Dr. B.S. Manjunath, Professor of ECE