Precomputed Acoustic Transfer: Output-sensitive, accurate sound generation for geometrically complex vibration sources

People

• Doug L. James
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Jernej Barbič
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Dinesh K. Pai
• Rutgers University and University of British Columbia

Abstract

Simulating sounds produced by realistic vibrating objects is challenging because sound radiation involves complex diffraction and interreflection effects that are very perceptible and important. These wave phenomena are well understood, but have been largely ignored in computer graphics due to the high cost and complexity of computing them at audio rates. We describe a new algorithm for real-time synthesis of realistic sound radiation from rigid objects. We start by precomputing the linear vibration modes of an object, and then relate each mode to its sound pressure field, or acoustic transfer function, using standard methods from numerical acoustics. Each transfer function is then approximated to a specified accuracy using low-order multipole sources placed near the object. We provide a low-memory, multilevel, randomized algorithm for optimized source placement that is suitable for complex geometries. At runtime, we can simulate new interaction sounds by quickly summing contributions from each mode's equivalent multipole sources. We can efficiently simulate global effects such as interreflection and changes in sound due to listener location. The simulation costs can be dynamically traded-off for sound quality. We present several examples of sound generation from physically based animations.

Citation

Doug L. James, Jernej Barbič and Dinesh K. Pai: Precomputed Acoustic Transfer: Output-sensitive, accurate sound generation for geometrically complex vibration sources ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2006), August 2006 [BiBTeX]

Project material

• Paper (PDF; 6 Mb)
• Video (with audio): MP4 (25 Mb), DivX (67 Mb)
• Presentation slides (SIGGRAPH 2006) (zipped ppt; 33 Mb)
• Real-time interactive demo:
  
  • Demo executable and data files (MS Windows):
  • All three models (ZIP, 33 Mb)
  • Bell (ZIP, 7 Mb)
  • Dragon (ZIP, 4 Mb)
  • Chair (ZIP, 23 Mb)
  • Video capture of the demo (with audio):
  • All three models: MP4 (60 Mb), DivX (81 Mb)
  • Bell: MP4 (27 Mb), DivX (38 Mb)
  • Dragon: MP4 (20 Mb), DivX (28 Mb)
  • Chair: MP4 (11 Mb), DivX (18 Mb)
  • Screenshots:
    
• Falling chairs (with audio): MP4 (5 Mb), DivX (25 Mb)
• Dipole evaluation C source code (ZIP, 2 Mb)

Note: you need the free DivX playback codec to play the DivX videos.

Funding

This research is supported by:

• NSF (CCF-0347740, IIS-0308157, ACI-0205671, EIA-0215887)
• NIH (CRCNS) R01-NS50942
• Pixar
• Alfred P.Sloan Foundation
• The Boeing Company
• NVIDIA
• Intel
• Donation of Maya licences by Autodesk

Disclaimer

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.

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