Interactive image-source techniques for virtual acoustics

Acoustic modeling research has focused on off-line techniques, yet with the increasingly realistic experience that interactive applications offer it is becoming necessary to generate convincing real-time audio. The image-source model has been used extensively for non-interactive acoustic modeling. Applying the image-source model to a real-time application requires three steps. First, the minimal reflection tree, which represents only possible reflections from a given sound source in 3D space, must be constructed. Second, for a given receiver point, all specular paths from source to receiver need to be computed using the minimal reflection tree and at an interactive rate. Lastly, the specular paths are used to construct a filter which in turn is applied to an anechoic audio source. This thesis demonstrates all three stages and compares the method to another interactive acoustic modeling technique, Adaptive Beam Tracing.