GPU-based acoustical occlusion modeling for virtual environments and games

Abstract

Although the direct path between a sound source and a listener is often occluded, through the phenomenon of diffraction sound can still reach a listener by “bending” around an obstacle that lies directly in the line of straight propagation. However, modeling occlusion/diffraction effects is a difficult and computationally intensive task and thus generally ignored altogether in virtual environments and videogame applications. Our previous work saw the development of a graphics-based processing technique to approximate acoustical occlusion effects at interactive rates. Here, we build upon our previous method and present a method that better approximates real-world acoustical diffraction effects for dynamic and interactive, videogame and virtual environments.