Spatially Oriented Format for Acoustics 2.1: Introduction and Recent Advances

Spatially oriented acoustic data can range from a simple set of impulse responses, such as head-related transfer functions, to a large set of multiple-input multiple-output spatial room impulse responses obtained in complex measurements with a microphone array ex- cited by a loudspeaker array at various conditions. The spatially oriented format for acoustics (SOFA), which was standardized by AES Standard 69 provides a format to store and share such data. SOFA takes into account geometric representations of many acoustic scenarios, data compression, network transfer, and a link to complex room geometries and aims at simplifying the development of interfaces for many programming languages. With the recent advancement of SOFA, the format offers new continuous-direction representation of data by means of spherical harmonics and novel conventions representing many measurement scenarios, such as source directivity and multiple-input multiple-output spatial room impulse responses. This article reviews SOFA by first providing an introduction to SOFA and then describing examples that demonstrate the most recent features of the SOFA 2.1 ( AES Standard 69-2022 ).