points by wetpaws 2 days ago | 0 comments
>Those of you who hear the world in three dimensions would know the answer, but am I hearing a flat plane?
You typically should feel sound as a 3d point, it maps roughly to the same sensory system that maps light or touch direction. Loud noise would feel as directional and material as bright sun or strong poke to a head. (Brain does this mapping transparently based on the small difference of time it takes the sound to reach your ears.) Sometimes the sound is not clear, you would either hear from a vague direction or with no direction channel provided from your brain at all.
The science behind Head Related Transform Functions [0] is fascinating, and includes additional tricks. For example, the shaped fleshy bits of your ears modify incoming sound differently depending on the direction, so that the noise from "up and in front" has a signature which differs from "down and behind". There's also a component that comes from sound traveling through your head, where traveling through the front is different than traveling though the back.
I particularly remember this because long ago I had an Aureal A3D [1] sound-card which made great positional sound (over headphones) by simulating HRTFs and sound-reflection off of game-world geometry. Unfortunately they were sued into bankruptcy by Creative, whose EAX technology was much less-impressive.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor#A3D