ArtiSynth: A Biomechanical Simulation Platform for the Vocal Tract and Upper Airway

We describe ArtiSynth, a 3D biomechanical simulation platform directed toward modeling the vocal tract and upper airway. It provides an open-source environment in which researchers can create and interconnect various kinds of dynamic and parametric models to form a complete integrated biomechanical system which is capable of articulatory speech synthesis. An interactive graphical Timeline runs the simulation and allows the temporal arrangement of input/output channels to control or observe properties of the model’s components. Library support is available for particle-spring and rigid body systems, finite element models, and spline-based curves and surfaces. To date, these have been used to create a dynamic muscle-based model of the jaw, a deformable tongue model, a deformable airway, and a linear acoustics model, which have been connected together to form a complete vocal tract that produces speech and is drivable both by data and by dynamics.