Self-induced Footsteps Sounds in Virtual Reality: Latency, Recognition, Quality and Presence

In this paper we describe the results of experiments whose goal is to investigate the effect of enhancing a virtual reality experience with the sound of synthetic footsteps. Results show that the sense of presence is enhanced when the sound of one’s own motion is added. Furthermore, the experiments show that the threshold for detection of latency between motion and sound is raised when visual stimuli is introduced. 1

"Inner Listening" as a Basic Principle for Developing Immersive Virtual Worlds.

Ludmil Duridanov and Simeon Simoff call in their paper “'Inner Listening' as a Basic Principle for Developing Immersive Virtual Worlds” for an approach that focuses on visualisation as an important way of analysing a Virtual World. They argued that immersive Virtual Worlds have developed on ad-hoc basis, driven mainly by the need for creating inhabited places for virtual communities and environments for distributed gameplay. The goal of achieving immersion has been mainly pursued using convincing 3D interactive graphics technology and the approaches to design have focused on the visualisation aspects, neglecting the “audio design” and the consistent integration of visual and audio designs. As the collaborative and community-related aspects of these environments are expected to be dominant in the future, the authors argue that there is a clear need to develop deeper underlying principles for the design of these inhabited virtual spaces. They conclude that Virtual Worlds of the future should be places that allow for a creative and enlightened state of mind by their inhabitants. Thereby two sources of wisdom – the Judeo-Islamic and Buddhist tradition – should be explored for establishing the principle of “inner listening” as one of the basic principles for developing immersive Virtual Worlds

Virtual reality in the architectural technology curriculum in the UK.

This paper seeks to understand the climate for Virtual Reality (VR) within the Architectural Technology (AT)curriculum in the U.K. It seeks to assess through literature, focus groups and questionnaires VR’s current place and seek to find a model to map an integration strategy of V.R. to the AT curriculum within the U.K. The paper uses focus groups, to highlight some of the problems that are still to be solved with the system and software. It also highlights for Architectural Technologists a new tool to communicate ideas with the three-dimensional world. We will assess virtual reality’s current placement to see what steps have been achieved, therefore we can evaluate what is next for the technology for an A.T. This paper will query academics of other A.T. courses and their own implementation of V.R. within their curriculum and analyse what and why we should be using this type of technology in the education system. Looking back upon V.R.’s development we are able to see what progress has and is being made, to see if the time is right now to be implementing the technology with an appropriate method. The results show that it is a beneficial tool ready to be used by students to further their understanding of Architectural Technology. The paper was originally a dissertation by C. F. Wood in Robert Gordon University

Calmness in Virtual Environments Enhance User’s Spatial Presence Experience

Presence has been described to be crucial in several virtual reality (VR) applications. Among the factors influencing presence, realistic virtual environment has been examined extensively from the angle of geometry-based virtual reality (GBVR) application. The visual of the applications has been manipulated by altering numerous technological characteristics or by adding more sensory information (such as touch and smell). However, realistic virtual environment in GBVR application often required complex programming and takes longer time to develop. As such GBVR application is not acceptable for the application that needs to have a collection of realistic panoramic virtual environments. An alternative solution for above statement is image-based virtual reality (IBVR) application. IBVR refers to photo-based images, stitched together to develop a realistic panoramic virtual environment. Based on this method, many realistic virtual environments can be created in much less time but with limited interaction function. Despite this limitation, realistic virtual environment in image-based virtual reality is expected to enhance user’s spatial presence experience, which is supported by spatial presence theoretical model. There a few levels in this theoretical model before the formation of spatial presence, and the most important part in this theoretical model is primary egocentric reference frames (PERF), adapting calmness to produce spatial presence experience. Thus, this chapter describes the summary on adapting calmness as PERF

Accurately Pinpointing 3D Sound in Virtual Environments

The capabilities of virtual surround sound and lacking compared to its visual counterpart. This disconnect between these two aspects often lead to a less immersive experience in virtual reality. This projects seeks to find a novel solution in creating a realistic virtual surround sound experience using an external software library for the Unity game engine

Awake : efectos sensoriales del sonido en una experiencia interactiva

This project aims to build an interactive experience using sound as its main element. It would be in charge of ambiance, feedback, guidance and content to user. It also aims, to establish sound as the principal perception element, overcoming the visuals...El objetivo principal del presente proyecto, es construir una experiencia interactiva teniendo al sonido como su elemento principal. El mismo que, será el encargado de dar ambientación, retroalimentación, guía a través de recorridos, narrativa y contenido a la experiencia. De la misma forma, establecer al sonido como elemento de percepción principal y prioritario, por encima del apartado visual..

Modelling affect for horror soundscapes

The feeling of horror within movies or games relies on the audience’s perception of a tense atmosphere — often achieved through sound accompanied by the on-screen drama — guiding its emotional experience throughout the scene or game-play sequence. These progressions are often crafted through an a priori knowledge of how a scene or game-play sequence will playout, and the intended emotional patterns a game director wants to transmit. The appropriate design of sound becomes even more challenging once the scenery and the general context is autonomously generated by an algorithm. Towards realizing sound-based affective interaction in games this paper explores the creation of computational models capable of ranking short audio pieces based on crowdsourced annotations of tension, arousal and valence. Affect models are trained via preference learning on over a thousand annotations with the use of support vector machines, whose inputs are low-level features extracted from the audio assets of a comprehensive sound library. The models constructed in this work are able to predict the tension, arousal and valence elicited by sound, respectively, with an accuracy of approximately 65%, 66% and 72%.peer-reviewe

Sounds too true to be good: diegetic infidelity–the case for sound in virtual reality

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Media Practice following peer review. The version of record McArthur, A., et al. (2017). "Sounds too true to be good: diegetic infidelity – the case for sound in virtual reality." Journal of Media Practice 18(1): 26-40. is available online at:https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2017.1305840© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Cinematic virtual reality (VR) elicits new possibilities for the treatment of sound in space. Distinct from screen-based practices of filmmaking, diegetic sound–image relations in immersive environments present unique, potent affordances, in which content is at once imaginary, and real. However, a reductive modelling of environmental realism, in the name of ‘presence’ predominates. Yet cross-modal perception is a noisy, flickering representation of worlds. Treating our perceptual apparatus as stable, objective transducers, ignores the inter-subjective potential at the heart of immersive work, and situates users as passive spectators. This condescends to audiences and discounts the historic symbiosis of sound–image signification, which comes to constitute notions of verisimilitude. We understand the tropes; we willingly suspend disbelief. This article examines spatial sound rendering in virtual environments, probing at diegetic realism. It calls for an experimental, aesthetic approach, suggesting several speculative strategies, drawing from theories of embodied cognition and acousmatic practice (amongst others) which necessarily deal with space and time as contingencies of the immersive. VR affords a development of the dialectic between sound and image which distinctively involves our spatial attention. The lines between referent and signified blur; the mediation between representations invoked by practitioners, and those experienced by audiences, suggest new opportunities for co-authorship.The authors wish to acknowledge support from the EPSRC and AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology through Queen Mary University of London

ÁUDIO DINÂMICO: O DESIGN DE SOM NOS AMBIENTES INTERATIVOS

In interactive environments, the use of sound has not advanced as technology in the same proportion of graphics, and the predominance of visual stimulus has caused users - and developers - to take the absence of sound stimulus as a standard. As a result, a universe of non-audible or acoustically polluted interfaces has been tried out. However, in the last 20 years, a number of efforts have been conducted by several researchers to make the sound studies significative and relevant in the area of HCI. The present study aims to summarize such efforts, as well as expose the concepts of dynamic audio, and also contextualize its application. In raising such questions, the study seeks to contribute to related discussions about sound design and interface design.Nos ambientes interativos, o uso do som não tem avançado como tecnologia na mesma proporção de desenvolvimento dos elementos gráficos, e a predominância do estímulo visual tem feito com que usuários – e desenvolvedores – tomem a ausência do estímulo sonoro como um padrão. Como resultado, tem-se experimentado um universo de interfaces não-sonoras ou poluídas acusticamente. No entanto, nos últimos 20 anos, uma série de esforços tem sido conduzidos por diversos pesquisadores para que o som adquira significado e relevância na área de IHC. O presente estudo objetiva sumarizar tais esforços, bem como expor os conceitos pertinentes do áudio dinâmico, e contextualizar sua aplicação. Ao levantar tais questões, busca-se contribuir para que as discussões acerca do design de som e do design de interface adquiram relevância, e a temática de estudo venha a se desenvolver de modo consistente