Formats

How to simulate 3D sound, modeling, and acoustic fields

The evolution of spatial audio has driven the development of various approaches aimed at creating immersive sound experiences. Each method is grounded in its own technical principles and seeks to balance playback efficiency, integration flexibility, and perceptual accuracy.

Some approaches focus on simulating the natural perception of the human ear through physiological models of sound; others focus on representing full acoustic fields.

In perception-based models, the goal is to recreate how sound interacts with the listener’s anatomy, generating an illusion of depth and direction with high realism, especially in personal-listening environments where spatial cues are most effective.

Representation Models

Some methods based on spherical sound fields —such as ambisonic audio— prioritize versatility and spatial coherence, enabling the description of complete acoustic environments with varying levels of detail. Models centered on independent sources offer an abstract and flexible representation in which each sound maintains its individual identity and can be repositioned dynamically without depending on a platform-predetermined channel layout.

Each approach has its own strengths and limitations: some excel in realism and simplicity, while others stand out for their ability to adapt to complex environments.

Together, these models of representation reflect a shared objective: reproducing, with the greatest possible fidelity and naturalness, the way humans perceive, localize, and interpret sound within a 3D space, aiming for realistic spatial experience.

The spatial audio implementation in I/O is built on a system that combines spatializers, listeners, and HRTF databases, where each component is designed to integrate into the graph while maintaining low latency, synchronization, and real-time spatial coherence.