New SONICOM toolbox to analyse spatial audio
As spatial audio technology continues to advance, accurate and reliable evaluation methods are essential.
Introducing Spatial Audio Metrics (SAM) – an open-source software platform to help researchers and audio enthusiasts compare and visualise Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) with new features being continually added.
Created by SONICOM researcher Dr Katarina Poole at Imperial College London, SAM was made in order to provide open-source tools that allow easier analysis of data within the spatial audio domain.
“Spatial audio plays a key role in creating fully immersive and captivating experiences in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR),” says Dr Poole. “The SAM toolbox is designed to enable researchers to fine-tune how accurately spatial audio replicates real-world listening in order to make it as immersive as possible.”
SAM offers the ability to evaluate various aspects of spatial audio, including:
- Numerical precision: Examine the auditory cues embedded in HRTFs, such as frequency, timing, and level differences. This analysis helps evaluate how effectively different HRTFs perform relative to one another
- Perceptual fidelity: Gain insights through behavioural analysis into the perceptual impact of HRTFs by identifying areas where they succeed or fall short in delivering accurate spatial audio experiences
- Visualisation: Leverage intuitive visual tools to pinpoint differences between HRTFs, whether they manifest in the time domain, frequency domain, or both.
By utilizing SAM, researchers, developers, and audio engineers can gain valuable insights into the spatial performance of their audio content and make informed decisions to enhance the listening experience.
Visit the SAM repository here.
SAM allows you to quickly visualise spectral differences between HRTFs at each individual location
