Instant Sound Scattering

Real-time sound rendering engines often render occlusion and early sound reflection effects using geometrical techniques such as ray or beam tracing. They can only achieve interactive rendering for environments of low local complexity resulting in crude effects which can degrade the sense of immersion. However, surface detail or complex dynamic geometry has a strong influence on sound propagation and the resulting auditory perception. This paper focuses on high-quality modeling of first-order sound scattering. Based on a surface-integral formulation and the Kirchhoff approximation, we propose an efficient evaluation of scattering effects, including both diffraction and reflection, that leverages programmable graphics hardware for dense sampling of complex surfaces. We evaluate possible surface simplification techniques and show that combined normal and displacement maps can be successfully used for audio scattering calculations. We present an auralization framework that can render scattering effects interactively thus providing a more compelling experience. We demonstrate that, while only considering first order phenomena, our approach can provide realistic results for a number of practical interactive applications. It can also process highly detailed models containing millions of unorganized triangles in minutes, generating high-quality scattering filters. Resulting simulations compare well with on-site recordings showing that the Kirchhoff approximation can be used for complex scattering problems.