Spatial Audio POI Replacement for Noise-Suppressed Scene Rendering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing spatial audio processing techniques struggle with undesired noise and dominant sound sources that interfere with the accurate capture and reproduction of audio scenes, leading to suboptimal listener experience.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus for spatial audio processing that identifies a portion of interest (POI) in the audio scene, suppresses it in the input audio signals, generates a complementary audio signal to represent the POI, and combines it with the spatial audio signal to create a reconstructed spatial audio signal, using spatial analysis and complementary audio generation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If spatial audio processing suppresses undesired noise and dominant sound sources, then the perceivable spatial audio image is enhanced, but the complexity of audio processing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The audio processing is segmented into distinct functional modules: spatial analysis module that identifies POIs, suppression module that attenuates unwanted sounds, complementary audio generation module that creates artificial POI representations, and mixing module that combines these signals. This modular segmentation allows each module to perform its specific function with optimized algorithms, improving overall spatial audio image quality while making the complex processing more manageable and efficient
Solution Approach 2:
A complementary audio signal is generated as an intermediary representation of the POI characteristics. This complementary signal serves as a mediator between the suppressed POI and the final output, allowing the system to reconstruct spatial information that would otherwise be lost during suppression. The intermediary complementary signal enables accurate spatial audio image enhancement without requiring direct access to the original POI
2Reliability
If a dominating sound source is captured at a certain spatial position, then the sound source is clearly recorded, but the ambience at that position becomes difficult to capture accurately
Solution Approach 1:
The POI (dominating sound source) is extracted and suppressed from the spatial audio signal. By removing the dominating sound source from the mixture, the system isolates the ambience components that were previously masked. This extraction allows separate processing where the sound source can be reliably captured in one signal stream while the ambience is accurately captured in another stream without mutual interference
3Area of stationary object
If multiple microphones are used to capture audio signals, then spatial audio scene coverage is improved, but the complexity of processing multiple signals increases
Solution Approach 1:
The processing of multiple microphone signals is segmented by first performing spatial analysis to identify POIs, then applying suppression selectively to those POI components. This segmentation avoids the need to process all microphone signals equally through complex algorithms, reducing overall processing complexity while maintaining wide spatial coverage benefits
Solution Approach 2:
The spatial analysis module automatically identifies POIs and determines which regions require suppression without manual intervention. The system self-adjusts the processing based on the captured audio scene characteristics, eliminating the need for complex manual configuration and reducing processing overhead while maintaining comprehensive spatial coverage
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus configured to: identify a POI in an audio scene, wherein one or more input audio signals represent the audio scene and at least one further input audio signal represents at least part of the audio scene, wherein the POI comprises a portion of the audio scene to be replaced during rendering using reconstructed audio parameters; generate, from the at least one further input audio signal, one or more complementary audio parameters that represent the POI in the audio scene; process the one or more input audio signals to obtain input audio parameters so as to enable replacement of the POI using the one or more complementary audio parameters; and combine the one or more complementary audio parameters with the input audio parameters, to create reconstructed audio parameters, so as to replace the POI in the audio scene at least partially using the one or more complementary audio parameters.