iEAR: Immersive Environmental Audio for Photorealistic Panoramas

Abstract

This paper presents iEAR, a flexible spatial audio rendering tool for use with photorealistic monoscopic and stereoscopic panoramas across various display systems. iEAR allows users to easily present multichannel audio scenes over variable speaker arrangements, while maintaining tight integration with the corresponding visual elements of the display media. Built in the Max/MSP Audio Programming Environment, iEAR utilizes well-established panning methods to accommodate a wide range of speaker configurations. Audio scene orientation is tied to the visual scene using an OSC connection with the visualization software, allowing users to render and spatialize multichannel environmental audio recordings in tandem with the changing perspective in the visual scene.