the WFSynth is a real-time wave field synthesis rendering engine with JACK interface. The project write-up, source code, and abstract are included on this page.

This project was accepted in completion of my masters at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

downloads

• thesis (568K, pdf)
• 2-D OSC for WFSynth. A JAVA-based GUI for sending 2-D OSC messages to the WFSynth. Tests for multiple sources and a variety of typical WFS scenarios (point vs. plane wave stereo, cocktail effect demonstration, inner/outer sources, doppler effect, room reflections, etc.).
• Or download from the SourceForge page.




abstract

Wave field synthesis is an acoustic spatialization technique for creating virtual environments. Taking advantage of the Huygens’ principle, wave fronts are simulated with a large array of speakers. Inside a defined listening space, the WFS speaker array reproduces incoming wave fronts emanating from an audio source at a virtual location. Current WFS implementations require off line computation which limits the real-time capabilities for spatialization. Further, no allowances for speaker configurations extending into the third dimension are given in traditional wave field synthesis.
A wave field synthesis system suitable for real-time applications and capable of placing sources at the time of rendering is presented. The rendering process is broken into logical components for a fast and extensible spatializer. A broad range of users and setup configurations are considered in the design. The result is a model-based wave field synthesis engine for real-time immersion applications.