Wave Acoustics in a Mixed Reality Shell

Title: Wave Acoustics in a Mixed Reality Shell

Teams: Microsoft

Writers: Keith W. Godin Ryan Rohrer John Snyder Nikunj Raghuvanshi

Publication date: August 2018

Abstract

We demonstrate the first integration of wave acoustics in a virtual reality operating system. The Windows mixed reality shell hosts third-party applications inside a 3D virtual home, propagating sound from these applications throughout the environment to provide a natural user interface. Rather than applying manually-designed reverberation volumes or ray-traced geometric acoustics, we use wave acoustics that robustly captures cues like diffracted occlusion and reverberation propagating through portals while reducing the design and maintenance burden. We describe our rendering implementation, materials-based design techniques, reverberation tuning, dynamic range management, and temporal smoothing that ensure a natural listening experience across unpredictable audio content and user motion.