Audio Mixed Reality Spatial Reconstruction for Real-World Awareness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional virtual reality applications fail to balance virtual and real-world sounds, leading to user disorientation or inaudibility, and lack interactive sound experiences.
Innovation Solution
Audio mixed reality devices and systems that enhance, diminish, or modify real-world sounds by overlaying or combining audio streams, capturing and reproducing sounds spatially, and dynamically reconstructing the external environment for contextual interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If virtual audio content is overlaid on real-world sounds, then immersive spatial audio experience is improved, but user awareness of real surroundings deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the mixing ratio between virtual audio content and real-world sounds based on user interaction, environmental context, and audio content characteristics. The audio mixing device can shift between immersive mode (prioritizing virtual content) and awareness mode (prioritizing real-world sounds), allowing flexible adaptation to different usage scenarios.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes audio parameters such as volume, spatial positioning, and temporal characteristics of both virtual and real audio streams. By manipulating parameters like gain, pan, and reverberation, the system creates a balanced auditory experience that maintains both immersion and situational awareness.
2Loss of information
If real-world noise is amplified to maintain awareness, then user awareness of surroundings is improved, but virtual audio content becomes inaudible
Solution Approach 1:
The audio mixing device segments the audio signal processing into separate channels for virtual and real-world sounds. By processing virtual and real audio streams independently and then combining them with controlled mixing ratios, the system ensures both audio sources remain distinguishable and audible simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The audio mixing device acts as an intermediary between virtual audio content and real-world sounds, mediating their interaction through controlled mixing. This intermediary function allows both audio sources to coexist without one overwhelming the other, maintaining balance in the auditory experience.
3Reliability
If virtual audio content is made dominant for immersion, then immersive experience is improved, but coherence with physical reality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the balance between virtual and real audio based on contextual factors such as user movement, environmental changes, and interaction patterns. This dynamic adaptation maintains coherence with physical reality by adjusting virtual audio content in response to real-world conditions.
Solution Approach 2:
The audio mixing device incorporates feedback mechanisms that monitor user interaction and environmental conditions, using this information to adjust the mixing ratio between virtual and real audio. This feedback loop ensures the audio experience remains coherent with the user's physical surroundings and interactions.
Data Source
AI summary
Audio mixed reality devices and systems that may enhance, diminish, or modify real-world sounds, such as by overlaying audio streams onto real-world sounds or by combining audio streams with real-world sounds. The audio mixed reality devices and systems may enable presence in the real world, immersion in audio streams, or focus on real-world sounds. Immersive spatial audio scenes may be layered over or otherwise used to modify real-world sounds. An audio mixed reality device may capture and reproduce real-world sounds such that they appear spatially situated in the user's environment. The resulting auditory experience may ensure that real-world sounds maintain their natural origin points, thereby providing an acoustic foundation upon which audio streams can be overlaid or modulated without disorienting the user. By dynamically reconstructing a spatial representation of the external environment, the audio mixed reality device may facilitate the contextual and spatial interaction of audio streams with real-world sounds.