Privacy-Zoned Audio Rendering for Spatially Accurate Immersion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing computer-mediated reality systems struggle to provide an adequately immersive auditory experience, particularly in scenarios with multiple audio sources, where sensitive information needs protection and accurate sound localization is crucial, often leading to reduced immersion due to latency and spatial accuracy issues.
Innovation Solution
The system selects a subset of audio streams based on authorization levels and adjusts gain or nulls certain streams to protect sensitive information while ensuring accurate sound localization, using ambisonic coefficients for precise soundfield representation and dynamic adaptation to user movements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If all audio streams are rendered to provide complete auditory experience, then immersion is improved, but sensitive information security deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the acoustic environment into multiple privacy zones with different authorization levels. Audio streams are selectively rendered based on which privacy zone the user is currently in, allowing complete auditory experience within authorized zones while protecting sensitive information in restricted zones.
Solution Approach 2:
Different authorization levels are applied to different spatial zones rather than uniformly across all audio streams. The system dynamically adjusts which audio streams are rendered based on the user's location and the authorization level associated with each privacy zone, providing localized audio rendering.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If audio streams are selectively filtered for privacy protection, then information security is improved, but spatial accuracy and immersion deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically determines which audio streams to render based on the user's real-time location and the authorization levels of different privacy zones. As the user moves between zones, the set of rendered audio streams changes dynamically, maintaining both privacy protection and spatial accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback from the user's location data to continuously adjust which audio streams are rendered. The audio rendering is adaptively controlled based on the user's position relative to privacy zones, ensuring that only authorized audio streams are played while maintaining accurate sound localization.
3Loss of information
If multiple audio streams are processed simultaneously, then auditory completeness is improved, but system latency and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of processing all audio streams simultaneously, the system processes only the subset of audio streams that are currently authorized for the user's location. This partial processing approach reduces computational complexity and latency while maintaining auditory completeness within the authorized context.
Data Source
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AI summary
Example devices and methods are disclosed. An example device includes a memory configured to store a plurality of audio streams and an associated level of authorization for each of the audio streams. The device also includes one or more processors implemented in circuitry and communicatively coupled to the memory. The one or more processors are configured to select, based on the associated levels of authorization, a subset of the plurality of audio streams, the subset of the plurality of audio streams excluding at least one of the plurality of audio streams.