'Sound Visualization and Manipulation'

The movie Gravity won seven Oscar awards this year, one of which was for its outstanding 3D sound mixing, immersing viewers in the full experience of the troubled space expedition.

3D audio effects are generated by manipulating the sound produced by speakers, speaker-arrays, or headphones to place a virtual sound source at a desired location in 3D space such as behind, above, or below the listener's head.

Two professors from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at KAIST have recently published a book that explains two important technologies related to 3D sound effects: sound visualization and manipulation.

Professor Yang-Hann Kim, an eminent scholar in sound engineering, and Professor Jung-Woo Choi collaborated to write Sound Visualization and Manipulation (Wily 2013), which uniquely addresses the two most important problems in the field in a unified way.

The book introduces general concepts and theories and describes a number of techniques in sound visualization and manipulation, offering an interrelated approach to two very different topics: sound field visualization techniques based on microphone arrays and controlled sound field generation techniques using loudspeaker arrays.

The authors also display a solid understanding of the associated physical and mathematical concepts applied to solve the visualization and manipulation problems and provide extensive examples demonstrating the benefits and drawbacks of various applications, including beamforming and acoustic holography technology.

The book will be an excellent reference for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in acoustic engineering, as well as in audio and noise control system development.

Provided by The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)