The PerspectiveLiberator -- an upmixing 6DoF rendering plugin for single-perspective Ambisonic room impulse responses

Abstract

Nowadays, virtual reality interfaces allow the user to change perspectives in six degrees of freedom (6DoF) virtually, and consistently with the visual part, the acoustic perspective needs to be updated interactively. Single-perspective rendering with dynamic head rotation already works quite reliably with upmixed first-order Ambisonic room impulse responses (ASDM, SIRR, etc.). This contribution presents a plugin to free the virtual perspective from the measured one by real-time perspective extrapolation: The PerspectiveLiberator. The plugin permits selecting between two different algorithms for directional resolution enhancement (ASDM, 4DE). And for its main task of convolution-based 6DoF rendering, the plugin detects and localizes prominent directional sound events in the early Ambisonic room impulse response and re-encodes them with direction, time of arrival, and level adapted to the variable perspective of the virtual listener. The diffuse residual is enhanced in directional resolution but remains unaffected by translatory movement to preserve as much of the original room impression as possible.