SOUND GENERATING DEVICE, SOUND REPRODUCTION DEVICE, SOUND GENERATING METHOD AND SOUND SIGNAL PROCESSING PROGRAM

Claims

1. A sound generating device comprising: a direction obtaining module that obtains the sound source direction of the sound source; and a panning controller that expresses a sound source by applying time shift and gain control to the sound source to perform panning for distributing the sound source signal into a plurality of representative directions based on the direction of the sound source obtained by the direction obtaining module.

2. A sound generating device according to paragraph 1, in which the panning controller sums distributed sound source signals at a plurality of representative positions to synthesize a sound image of the sound source by using sounds from a plurality of representative directions.

3. The sound generating device according to paragraph 2, in which the panning control applies to the sound source: a time shift calculated to maximize the cross-correlation between the human sound perception impulse response for the direction of the sound source and the human sound perception impulse response for each of a plurality of representative directions, or a time shift with a minus sign, resulting from assigning a minus sign to a time shift.

4. The sound generating device according to paragraph 3, in which the result obtained by calculating the cross-correlation after applying the weighting filter in the frequency domain is used for time shifting, gain, or time shifting and gain.

5. The sound generating device according to paragraph 3, in which, for each of a plurality of representative positions, the panning control applies a gain to the sound source, wherein the gain is specified for the sound source and the representative direction for the representative position.

6. The sound generating device according to paragraph 5, wherein, when a human auditory impulse response (HRIR) vector for a sound source direction is synthesized by using a sum of HRIR vectors for a plurality of representative directions to obtain a synthesized HRIR vector, the panning controller uses a gain calculated in such a manner that the error signal vector between the synthesized HRIR vector and the HRIR vector for the sound source direction is orthogonal to each of the HRIR vectors for the plurality of representative directions.

7. The sound generating device according to paragraph 5, wherein the panning controller uses a gain calculated to minimize the L2 norm or the energy of the error signal vector between the synthesized human HRIR vector and the HRIR vector for the direction of the sound source.

8. The sound generating device according to paragraph 7, in which the result obtained by applying a frequency-domain weighting filter is used for the error signal vector.

9. The sound generating device according to paragraph 5, wherein the panning controller uses adjusted gains, wherein the adjusted gains are used to maintain an energy balance between the left and right ears in the human sound perception impulse responses from the sound source position, in the actually synthesized human sound perception impulse responses by panning using the human sound perception impulse responses from a plurality of representative positions.

10. The sound generating device according to paragraph 5, in which a panning controller applies a time shift to a sound source, treats signals to each of which a gain is applied as representative positional signals present at a plurality of representative positions, and convolves impulse responses of human sound perception at a plurality of representative positions with a sum signal of representative positional signals equal in number to the plurality of sound sources, so as to form a signal that reaches the ear of a listener.

11. The sound generating device according to paragraph 3, in which, when shifting in time, a shift by a decimal discretization number is allowed.

12. The sound generating device according to paragraph 3, in which a high-frequency accentuation filter compensates for the tendency of the high-frequency range to attenuate.

13. The sound generating device according to paragraph 1, wherein the audio source is an audio signal of the content or an audio signal of a participant in a remote call, and The direction receiving module receives the direction of the sound source when viewed from the listener.

14. A sound reproducing device comprising: a sound generating device according to any one of paragraphs 1-13; and an audio output module that outputs an audio signal generated by a audio generating device.

15. A method for generating sound, carried out by means of a sound generating device, wherein the method for generating sound comprises the steps of: obtain the sound source direction for the sound source; and express a sound source by applying time shift and gain adjustments to the sound source to perform panning to distribute the sound source signal into a plurality of representative directions based on the obtained direction of the sound source.

16. A sound signal processing program executed by a sound generating device, wherein the sound signal processing program instructs the sound generating device: obtain the sound source direction for a sound source; and express a sound source by applying time shift and gain adjustments to a sound source to perform panning to distribute the sound source signal into a plurality of representative directions based on the obtained direction of the sound source.