ACOUSTICAL RAY TRACING

RAY TRACING IS A TECHNIQUE USED IN COMPUTER GRAPHICS WHEREIN A RAY MUCH LIKE A PENCIL BEAM OF LIGHT IS FOLLOWED FROM ITS SOURCE AND IS ALLOWED TO REFLECT FROM THE VARIOUS SURFACES OF THE ROOM UNTIL IT IS GATHERED IN THE EYE OF THE VIEWER. THIS CALCUALTION TECHNIQUE (ACTUALLY REVERSED IN AN ACTUAL PROGRAM) ALLOWS FOR THE ACCURATE RECREATION OF STARTLING COMPUTER IMAGES. RESEARCHERS ARE USING A SIMILAR TECHNIQUE FOR THE RAY TRACING OF SOUND RAYS IN A ROOM. THE RAYS ARE ALLOWED TO INTERACT WITH THE SURFACES OF THE ROOM AND BE REFLECTED OR ABSORBED ACCORDING TO THE TREATMENT ON EACH SURFACE. THE RAYS ARE THEN GATHERED AT A RECEIVER LOCATION. BOTH THE AMPLITUDE AND DIRECTION OF THE RAYS, AS WELL AS THE TIME OF ARRIVAL, ARE RETAINED FOR FURTURE PROCESSING. THE REPRODUCTION OF SOUND USING AN ARRAY OF SPEAKERS LOCATED AROUND THE OBSERVER IS SIMULATED. EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING CARRIED OUT TO CONFIRM THE NUMBER REQUIRED TO LOCALIZE SOUND SOURCES AT ARBITRARY ANGLES WITHIN THE SPACE. THE PROJECT LEADS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF USING DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING TO RECREATE THE SOUND FIELD OF A SPACE BY PLAYING A SIGNAL CONVOLVED WITH THE ROOM ANALYSIS THROUGH THE SPEAKER ARRAY.