IHTA at the BauSIM conference in Weimar
From the 20th to the 22nd September 2022, the BauSIM conference took place. The scientific core topic of the conference is traditionally the energetic simulation in the building sector and offers an ideal discussion forum for experts from science and industry for mutual exchange. The conference is organized by the and IBSPA Germany-Austria, member of the International Building and Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) This year’s conference introduced a new session on acoustic simulation topics, and our institute was present.
In particular, our Junior Principal Investigator Dr. Josep Llorca-Bofí, from the PAAD group was invited as key-note speaker, talking about The city – A machine for noise? Virtual acoustics in architectural design research. Together with our PhD student M. Sc. Jonas Heck and Professor Michael Vorländer, the following research paper was presented: 3D photogrammetry for auralization – An approach for geometry simplification and material categorization.
junge DEGA Workshop 2022 in Stuttgart
From 2nd to 4th September 2022, after a three-years break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the “junge DEGA Herbstworkshop” took place in Stuttgart, like the DAGA conference earlier this year. Junge DEGA is a sub-group of the German Acoustical Society with the mission to connect students, PhDs and young professionals in the domain of acoustics. It organizes special sessions and panel discussions during the Annual German Conference on Acoustics (DAGA), providing information on research funding opportunities and job entry. Furthermore, junge DEGA offers a mentoring program with active participation from industry and academia.
Two PhD students of the Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics, Simon Kersten and Jonas Heck, as well as Nils Rummler, recently graduated bachelor student, participated in this year’s workshop. The program started with visits at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP and the Center for Building Physics (ZfB, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart). Furthermore, it consisted of short presentations given by the participants, a plenary meeting of the junge DEGA group to plan the following year’s activities and a guided visit of the new main station construction site (known as Stuttgart 21) with a focus on noise and vibration control. The weekend was concluded with a hands-on workshop on building a loudspeaker from residual materials and competing for the highest sound pressure level.
Pictures from the workshop can be found in the gallery below.
Inter-noise 2022 in Glasgow
This year’s inter-noise conference took place from August 21st to 24th in Glasgow, Scotland. More than 1000 delegates participated in this conference and presented interesting research in the field of acoustics and noise. Highlights of the conference included key note talks by Lily Wang (University of Nebraska–Lincoln) on indoor acoustic conditions and by the Salford Group (Andy Moorhouse, Andy Elliott and Josh Meggitt) on virtual acoustic prototypes.
Four researchers of the Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics travelled to the conference and presented the following research papers:
- Eli Abi Raad: Experimental setup for laser vibrometry measurements of the vibrating horn in Ultrasonic Metal Welding
- Lukas Aspöck: Differences between measured and simulated room impulse responses
- Christian Dreier: Vehicle pass-by noise auralization in a virtual urban environment
- Lara Stürenburg: Acoustic Measurements and Psychoacoustic Analyses of Ventilation Diffusers
The full conference proceedings are also available for download here.
The interesting scientific program was accompanied by an entertaining social program as well as various early career events, which helped many of the younger participants to connect with each other. The International Institute of Noise Control Engineering (i-ince) also supported young researchers by providing travel grants, one of which was received by Elie Abi Raad. Congratulations, Elie, to this grant.
Pictures from the conference including the grant ceremony can be found in the gallery below.
IHTA at the POSTER 2022 Conference
After a break of three years due to the pandemic, this year in May, the 26th International Student Conference on Electrical Engineering POSTER 2022 was held in Prague, Czech Republic. This annual event in Czech’s capital city is an excellent opportunity for undergraduate and postgraduate students to gain first experiences at an international conference and strengthens the relationship between CTU Prague and RWTH Aachen University.
Three Phd students of the Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics presented scientific work in Prague:
- Anne Heimes: Virtual reality environments for soundscape research
- Carolin Reimers: Investigating the Auditory Selective Attention Switch in Virtual Reality
- Lukas Vollmer: Evaluating Spatial Audio for Hearing Aid Applications
We are happy to report that the work by Anne Heimes was selected by a jury as the best paper in the category Informatics and Cybernetics. Congratulations to Anne for this award!
Pictures of the event can be found on the conference’s website.
Verabschiedung von Herrn Uwe Schlömer
Nach einer fast 50-jährigen Dienstzeit ist am 1. August 2022 der Leiter der mechanischen Werkstatt, Uwe Schlömer, in den wohlverdienten Ruhestand gegangen. Zur Verabschiedung wurde, entsprechend der Tradition der Doktorhüte, diesmal ein „Meisterhut“ überreicht, begleitet von einem Buch mit Grußworten aktueller sowie ehemaliger Mitarbeiter*innen und Anekdoten aus der langjährigen Dienstzeit.
Das IHTA bedankt sich auch an dieser Stelle nochmal für die hervorragende, immer verlässliche Arbeit von Uwe Schlömer und wünscht alles Gute für den Ruhestand.
Die mechanische Werkstatt des Instituts wird nun von Marc Eiker geleitet.
Early Career Presenter Award at the 182nd ASA Meeting
The 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) was held in Denver, Colorado, from 23- 27 May 2022. At the conference, our PhD student Simon Kersten was honored with the Early Career Presenter Award by the Computational Acoustics Technical Committee of the ASA for his presentation on “Influence of the Model Parameters for the Finite Element Simulation of Bone Conduction in the Human Head”.
In this work, the influence of the various material parameters that are to be determined for finite-element models of human heads in bone conduction research was illustrated using a simple ellipsoid model. This research is part of the CRC 1330 HAPPAA funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
Congratulations to Simon for this award!
Promotionsprüfung Dipl.-Ing. Jonas Stienen
Am 3. Juni 2022 hat Herr Jonas Stienen seine mündliche Promotionsprüfung erfolgreich abgeschlossen.
Herr Stienen promovierte über das Thema:
„Real-time auralisation of outdoor sound propagation“
Das IHTA gratuliert sehr herzlich!
Abstract der Doktorarbeit:
Auralisation describes the process of generating and presenting audible sound using computer programs and audio hardware. Since the result is perceived naturally by the human’s auditory system, a demonstration by means of auralisation is easily comprehensible and does neither require background knowledge nor expertise. Producing auralisation under real-time constraints increases the implementation demands significantly. Real-time auralisation is required in applications that respond to user interaction, for example, in interactive Virtual Reality (VR) environments. Dynamically moving sound sources and receivers evoke a change in the perceived sound, and the corresponding result must be provided as quickly as possible. A feeling of immersion can be created if the response time of the system does not exceed perceptual thresholds and thus enables a plausible scene presentation. To achieve this emotional state, real-time auralisation must comply with the expected physical behaviour.
The realisation of a real-time auralisation application for outdoor environments represents a promising addition to current noise assessment procedures. It also delivers the foundation for the auditory modality in outdoor VR scenarios, which can server as as an audio-video tool for perception-related scientific investigations.
In the past, auralisation has gained much attention in room acoustics. An attempt to transfer the established concepts and approaches to outdoor environments reveals two systemic deficiencies.
Firstly, room acoustic simulations are commonly based on Geometrical Acoustics (GA), which determines reflected sound rapidly and with high accuracy, but struggles to incorporate diffracted sound. In most urban settings, however, the transmission of sound from a noise source to a receiver contains a significant contribution of both reflected and diffracted components. Furthermore, dynamic virtual environments are time-variant. Traditional realisations often neglect this characteristic, treating an acoustic environment as temporarily static on a frame-by-frame basis. Adaption to dynamic events is implemented by transition of sequences of time-invariant simulations, which is contradictory to the highly dynamic nature of outdoor scenarios.
To address these two misconceptions, a real-time auralisation system is suggested that attaches increased importance to fast geometric diffraction simulations and is based on an audio rendering network that reflects the time-variant nature of dynamic outdoor sound propagation.
Das IHTA bei der DAGA Stuttgart 2022
Nach dreijähriger, pandemiebedingter Pause fährt das Institut für Hörtechnik und Akustik wieder zur DAGA Tagung, die dieses Mal in Stuttgart stattfindet.
Hier eine Übersicht der wissenschaftlichen Beiträge (22.3.2022 – 24.3.2022):
Vorträge
Wann? | Erstautor*in | Titel | Raum | Sitzung |
Dienstag 14:00 Uhr |
Lukas Aspöck | Configuration of a real-time auralization framework for complex scenes | 7-01 | Virtuelle Akustik für dynamische Szenen: Methoden und experimentelle Anwendungen 1 |
Dienstag 14:20 Uhr |
Pascal Palenda | Open-Source Simulation Scheduling Framework for Real-Time Auralisation | 7-01 | Virtuelle Akustik für dynamische Szenen: Methoden und experimentelle Anwendungen 1 |
Dienstag 14:20 Uhr |
Simon Kersten | Finite Element Simulation of Bone Conduction in the Human Head: The Inner Ear Component | 9-0.267 | Physiologische Akustik |
Dienstag 14:20 Uhr |
Nils Rummler | Analysis of Multi-Exponential Decay Constant Estimation Methods | 47-03 | Messung der Schallabsorption 1 |
Dienstag 14:40 Uhr |
Christian Dreier | Inverse modelling of vehicle pass-by noise for auralizations | 7-01 | Virtuelle Akustik für dynamische Szenen: Methoden und experimentelle Anwendungen 1 |
Dienstag 14:40 Uhr |
Masoumeh Salehi | Ersatzschaltbildmodellierung von Knochenschall | 9 0.267 | Physiologische Akustik |
Dienstag 15:00 Uhr |
Mark Müller-Giebeler | Neural Network Based In-situ Method to Determine Surface Impedance and Absorption Coefficient of Porous Materials | 47-03 | Messung der Schallabsorption 1 |
Dienstag 15:20 Uhr |
Roberto Campos Ruiz | Dynamic Road Noise Mapping Prediction Using Machine Learning | 9-0208 | Geräuschbeurteilung |
Dienstag 17:20 Uhr |
Elie Abi Raad | On using machine learning in Ultrasonic Metal Welding | 57-06 | AI-based methods for audio analysis and knowledge extraction 2 |
Mittwoch 09:40 Uhr |
Thomas Deutsch | An Assessment of Higher-Order Ambisonics Reproduction in the Context of Spatial Release from Masking | 9-01 | Psychoakustik 3 |
Mittwoch 14:00 Uhr |
Michael Kohnen | SAQI comparison of CTC, Ambisonics and VBAP | 7-01 | Virtuelle Akustik 2 |
Mittwoch 15:20 Uhr |
Jonas Heck | Ambient Sounds in Auralization – Calibration Method for Spherical Microphones | 7-01 | Virtuelle Akustik 2 |
Mittwoch 17:00 Uhr |
Lukas Vollmer | Stimulus Onset Asynchronies in Audio-visual Serial Recall Performance | 9-01 | Psychoakustik 5 |
Donnerstag 08:40 Uhr |
Jamilla Balint | The methodology matrix to investigate evaluation methods in auditory cognition in interactive virtual environments | 9-0208 | SPP 2236 AUDICTIVE – Auditory Cognition in Interactive Virtual Environments 1 |
Donnerstag 09:00 Uhr |
Hark Braren | On the Influence of Knee Reflections in HRTF Measurements | 47-03 | Binauraltechnik |
Donnerstag 09:00 Uhr |
Ingo Witew | Zur Unsicherheit von Raumimpulsantwortmessungen | 47-01 | Raumakustik 1 |
Donnerstag 09:40 Uhr |
Josep Llorca Bofi | Unfolding urban vocabularies – Audio-visual description of public spaces and their connections to urban analysis | 47-05 | Soundscape |
Donnerstag 10:20 Uhr |
Carolin Reimers | Investigating Different Cueing Methods for Auditory Selective Attention in Virtual Reality | 9-0208 | SPP 2236 AUDICTIVE – Auditory Cognition in Interactive Virtual Environments 1 |
Donnerstag 10:40 Uhr |
Philipp Schäfer | Auralization with Linked Atmospheric and Urban Noise Propagation Models | 9-01 | Lärm – Schifffahrt und Flugverkehr 2 |
Donnerstag 14:00 Uhr |
Cosima Ermert | Examining the Influence of Varying Audio Reproduction Methods on Verbal Short-Term Memory | 9-0208 | SPP 2236 AUDICTIVE – Auditory Cognition in Interactive Virtual Environments 2 |
Donnerstag 14:20 Uhr |
Anne Heimes | Numerical simulation of scattering patterns of a sineshaped surface | 47-01 | Raumakustik 2 |
Donnerstag 14:20 Uhr |
Marco Berzborn | Spatio-temporal analysis of anisotropic reverberation | 47-05 | Rendering, Processing, and Perception of Diffuse Reverberation |
Poster
Wann? | Erstautor*in | Titel | Raum | Sitzung |
Dienstag 15:40 Uhr |
Karin Loh | Challenges and methods to design a dual-task experiment in spatial auditory environments for young children (3-6 years old) | 9-01, J | Psychoakustik (Poster 1) |
Mittwoch 15:40 Uhr |
Lara Stürenburg | Aeroacoustic Performance of Air Diffusers and their Psychoacoustic Evaluation | 47-02, A | Strömungsakustik (Poster) |
Donnerstag 11:00 Uhr |
Shaima’a Doma | Interrelation Analysis of Distance Metrics for Head-Related Transfer Functions | 47-03, A | Augmented Acoustic Reality (Poster) |
Promotionsprüfung Muhammad Imran, M.Sc.
Am 4. Februar 2022 hat Herr Muhammad Imran seine mündliche Promotionsprüfung erfolgreich abgeschlossen.
Herr Muhammad Imran promovierte über das Thema:
„Virtual Building Acoustics – Auralization with contextual and Interactive Features“
Abstract:
Building acoustics auralization is used to assess the perceptual aspects of sound transmission in built environments to provide the guidelines for architectural constructions and to evaluate the noise effects on humans. These noise effects have a negative influence on daily-life activities and create disturbances in physical and metal work. These disturbances are present within the dwellings and/or might be from outdoor moving transient sound sources. Methods are available for auralization of sound insulation between connected rooms in compliance with the standardized data formats of sound insulation metrics and building structural geometries. However, there still exist certain challenges to be addressed to construct the transfer functions between noise sources and receiver room for indoor situations as well as for the outdoor moving sound sources and to make these sources audible through audio-visual virtual reality systems in real time and interactively. These challenges are due to certain simplifications which are implicit in the formulation on which the sound insulation prediction models are based, such as, diffuse field assumptions, neglecting source characteristics, and source and receiver room acoustics.
This thesis focuses on addressing the present challenges in the traditional sound insulation rendering techniques and establishing an interface between psychoacoustic research and building acoustics in dwellings (especially airborne sound insulation) integrated with audio-visual virtual reality environments. From the technical perspective, improvements are made in sound insulation prediction methods, and corresponding filter construction and rendering techniques for auralization. In the first place, the building elements are considered as multitude of secondary sources rather than taking them as point source radiators and the bending wave patterns are addressed in order to be able to properly construct the transfer functions from source to the receiver room. Secondly, the room acoustical simulations are carried out for both source and receiving rooms to generate transfer functions from source to the source room walls and from radiating receiving room walls to the listener, so that the geometries and absorption might be fit to the properties desired by the user for the spatial impression of the listening rooms. In addition, the transfer functions from radiating walls of the receiving room to listener are designed in such a way that not only indoor sources are handled nevertheless the outdoor moving sources are also addressed.
Some important conditions are associated with virtual building acoustics auralization research platform for advanced studies of noise effects in dwellings which are addressed. The audio files, generally, used in listening tests are arbitrarily manipulated by audio samples without the background of a physical model of the built environments. They must comply with the standardized data formats of sound reduction indices (level differences) and/or sound transmission coefficients. Other data related to building structure such as geometry shall be strictly connected to the architectural design, the building materials and constructions. Otherwise the conclusions of the psychoacoustic experiments have no direct correlation with the architectural design, especially when presented through virtual environments. To achieve this, the auralization framework is extended toward real-time interactive audio-visual technology, i.e. VR technology, in order to be able to introduce more realism and, hence, contextual features into psychoacoustic experiments. The building acoustics framework is validated by taking indoor and outdoor example case studies. Listening experiments close to real-life situations are carried out by using this framework to show that this framework can be used as an alternate to design new test paradigms which help to better analyse and interpret the noise impact in building situations depending on the actual activity such as working, learning, and rest.
Das IHTA gratuliert sehr herzlich!!
Promotionsprüfung Dipl.-Ing. Ingo Witew
Am 21. Januar 2022 hat Herr Ingo Witew seine mündliche Promotionsprüfung erfolgreich abgeschlossen.
Herr Witew promovierte über das Thema:
„Measurements in room acoustics – Uncertainties and influence of the measurement position“
Abstract:
Regardless of the field, measurements are essential for the validation of theories and for making well-founded decisions. A criterion for the validity and comparability of measured values is their uncertainty. The „Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement“ (GUM) provides a standardized framework for determining and interpreting measurement uncertainty. In room acoustic measurements, the application of these rules is not yet widespread. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that well established 2-CH-FFT correlation techniques rely on a complex principle, which is not covered by the classical guide. In addition, the effect of input variables on a measurement can only be determined in individual cases after considerable effort. An example are fluctuations of room acoustic quantities over smallest distances between measurement locations in concert halls. This change of the sound field over the location is sometimes considerable and can only be predicted in relatively simple boundary value problems. This raises the question of the validity and interpretability of room acoustics measurements.
The goal of this thesis is to provide a GUM-compliant discussion of uncertainties in measuring room acoustic single-number quantities. This starts with a structured search of variables that potentially influence the measurement of room impulse responses. In a second step, this uncertainty is propagated through the algorithm for determining room acoustic single-number quantities.
Further emphasis is placed on the investigation of spatial fluctuations of the sound field in auditoria. The influence of an uncertain measurement position on the overall measurement uncertainty is discussed. To reach general conclusions, the relation between changes in the measurement location and the corresponding changes in room acoustics quantities is investigated empirically in extensive measurement series. To this purpose, a measurement apparatus was designed that allows automatic, high-resolution sampling of sound fields over large areas. The collected data sets the foundation to propagate the uncertainty using a Monte Carlo method.
This study shows how precisely a measurement position must be defined to ensure a given uncertainty of room acoustical single-number quantities. The presented methods form a foundation that can be flexibly extended in future investigations to include additional influences on the measurement uncertainty.
Das IHTA gratuliert sehr herzlich!!
Promotionsprüfung Dipl.-Ing. Florian Pausch
Am 26. November 2021 hat Herr Florian Johannes Pausch seine mündliche Promotionsprüfung erfolgreich abgeschlossen.
Herr Pausch promovierte über das Thema: „Spatial audio reproduction for hearing aid research: System design, evaluation and application“
Abstract:
Listening, understanding and communicating are essential skills for social interaction in everyday life. Hearing loss (HL) may have severe consequences on these skills and affect individuals by hindering language development, learning success and participation in social life already at an early age. Depending on the individual predisposition, those affected are likely to withdraw from socialisation processes and sometimes suffer from compromised mental and general health. However, these consequences are not limited to children but also apply to adults and elderly people, especially those who refuse to acknowledge their HL and appropriate treatment, leading to an increased risk of apathy and depression, as well as memory problems and dementia. Assistive listening devices, such as hearing aids (HAs), represent an effective technical intervention tool capable of partially restoring impaired hearing and helping to overcome the aforementioned consequences of HL. Despite using the latest technology, individuals fitted with HAs often complain about poor performance of their devices, particularly in demanding indoor communication settings with unfavourable room acoustics. To some extent, these performance shortcomings can be attributed to limitations of HA algorithms, which are often designed and tested using simplified laboratory scenarios that may differ substantially from complex real-world situations. This thesis contributes to bridging this gap by exploring the advantages and flexibility of virtual acoustic environments (VAEs) reproduced by state-of-the-art spatial audio reproduction methods adapted for HA research. In order to further approach the overarching goal of ecological validity, the system design has been complemented by real-time implementations and room acoustic simulations, allowing to include listener movements via motion tracking and simulate plausible indoor environments, respectively. The systems are comparatively evaluated based on measurements and perceptual experiments with normal-hearing individuals, demonstrating their applicability in experiments involving normal-hearing participants and participants with HL.
Das IHTA gratuliert sehr herzlich!!
DEGA Symposium 14 – Interactive Auralization for Spatial Planning
The Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics demonstrated its auralization tools in the 14th DEGA Symposium – „Interaktive Auralisierung für die Planung von Räumen“ in Berlin, during the 12th and 13th November 2021, under the title:
Auralization of an urban scene: Multimodal presentation of aircraft noise with atmospheric damping and vehicle sound propagation with parametric synthetic sound sources.
Christian Dreier, Josep Llorca-Bofi, Jonas Heck, Philipp Schäfer, Anne Heimes, Luciana Alves, Jonas Kempin and Michael Vorländer.
An audio-visual live demonstration was presented with graphics based on Unreal Engine 4. The spatial audio was rendered using Virtual Acoustics (VA) making use of different simulation frameworks developed at IHTA. A similar example can be experienced in this 360º video.
DAGA 2022 – Travel Grants
Die Gesellschaft für Technische Akustik (GfTA e.V.) möchte Studierende des IHTAs unterstützen an der kommenden Jahrestagung für Akustik (DAGA 2022) teilzunehmen. Diese findet vom 21. bis zum 24. März 2022 in Stuttgart statt und bietet eine sehr gute Möglichkeit, erste Erfahrungen bei wissenschaftlichen Konferenzen zu sammeln.
Die GfTA fördert in diesem Jahr bis zu drei Studierende durch einen Reisezuschuss (Travel grant) in Höhe von jeweils 250€. Kandidat*innen müssen keinen wissenschaftlichen Beitrag bei der Konferenz einreichen, sollten aber zuvor noch keine DAGA-Konferenz besucht haben und entweder aktuell oder kürzlich an einer Lehrveranstaltung am IHTA teilgenommen haben.
Um Dich für den Travel grant zu bewerben, schreibe eine Email an Lukas Aspöck und erkläre in ein oder zwei Sätzen, warum Du motiviert bist an einer Akustik-Konferenz teilzunehmen. Die Deadline für Bewerbungen ist der 5.12.2021.
Euronoise 2021 – EAA e-Congress
EURONOISE 2021 has started today and of course IHTA is also represented with interesting talks!
Unfortunately it was not possible to meet in person on Madeira and we are faced with a nicely organized online event. You can find a list of all IHTA’s talks below (The time zone of the program is UTC/GMT+0, Lisbon time zone):
Monday, October 25th, 2021
- 15.40, Room PORTO MONIZ (room 5) – Investigating noise disturbance in open-plan offices using measurements of the room acoustics, and of the sound environment during occupancy – Manuj Yadav; Densil Cabrera; Jungsoo Kim; James Love; Jonothan Holmes; Janina Fels; Richard de Dear;[SS5]
Tuesday, October 26th, 2021
- 9.20, Room PORTO SANTO (room 3) – Challenges in interactive sound insulation auralization – Michael Vorländer;[SS17]
- 11.20, Room PORTO SANTO (room 3) – Voice support from acoustically retroreflective surfaces – Densil Cabrera; Jonothan Holmes1; Shuai Lu1; Mary Rapp1; Manuj Yadav; [SS22]
- 17.20, Room PORTO MONIZ (room 5) – Combined assessment of cognitive and physiological parameters in child-appropriate listening experiments – Karin Loh; Christoph Hoog Antink; Sophie Nolden; Janina Fels;[SS21]
Wednesday, October 27th, 2021
- 14:20, Room FUNCHAL (room 2) – On the Estimation of Directional Decay Times in Reverberation Rooms – Marco Berzborn; Jamilla Balint; Michael Vorländer;[SS9]
- 14:40, Room FUNCHAL (room 2) – Modeling the edge effect for inverse determination of porous absorbers using feed forward neural networks – Mark Müller-Giebeler; Michael Vorländer;[SS9]
- 15:20, Room PORTO MONIZ (room 5) – Eigenfrequency analysis of the vibrating horn in Ultrasonic Metal Welding – Elie Abi Raad; Jose Maria Uribe; Michael Vorländer;[GS29]
More information can be found here: http://www.spacustica.pt/euronoise2021/
Rayleigh Medal for Prof. Michael Vorländer
The Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics is proud to announce that Prof. Michael Vorländer recently received the prestigious Rayleigh Medal, the highest award of the Institute of Acoustics. Congratulations!
The Rayleigh Medal is the Institute of Acoustics‘ premier award, awarded without regard to age to persons of undoubted renown for outstanding contributions to acoustics. The medal is named after John William Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh (1842-1919), a very versatile physicist who conducted both experimental and theoretical research in virtually every branch of the subject. His book The Theory of Sound remains a landmark text in the development of acoustics.
Source: https://www.ioa.org.uk/about-us/awards
By receiving this award, Michael joins a list of very well-known acousticians such as Manfred Schröder, Hugo Fastl, Leo Beranek and his his predecessor Heinrich Kuttruff, who have also been awarded this medal.
BASH 2021 – Joint Conference on Binaural and Spatial Hearing
The 2nd joint conference on binaural and spatial hearing (BASH) was held on October 7th and 8th, 2021. The meeting took place virtually, featuring talks on behavior, modeling, physiology and virtual reality. On Friday, October 8th, Janina Fels and Carolin Reimers gave a presentation on a paradigm investigating auditory selective attention in a virtual classroom, which has been developed in the context of the project “Evaluating cognitive performance in classroom scenarios using audiovisual virtual reality – ECoClass-VR” . This project is part of the priority program SPP2236 – AUDICTIVE: Auditory Cognition in interactive virtual Environments funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – German Research Foundation. Next to exciting projects, AUDICTIVE also organizes workshops for the participating researchers, such as a visualization workshop offered by Martina Grigoleit, which has already been made use of during the BASH.
Young Professionals Grant at inter-noise 2021
From August 1st, 2021 until August 5th, 2021, the 50th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering (inter-noise 2021) was held in online mode (originally it was planned to take place in Washington, DC).
Our PhD student Christian Dreier participated in this event and presented the paper Sound source modelling by nonnegative matrix factorisation for virtual reality applications. Related to this contribution, he was selected as a winner of the Young Professionals Grant Competition by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (I-INCE) – congratulations to Christian for this award!
Annual Meeting of the Priority Program AUDICTIVE
On September 16th, 2021 we met online for our annual meeting of our priority program SPP2236 – AUDICTIVE (www.spp2236-audictive.de): Auditory Cognition in interactive virtual Environments funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – German Research Foundation.
The day was very inspiring and the basis for special interests groups and lab visits could be established! Special thanks go to our moderator Ellen Gürtler.
We are looking forward to the upcoming months full of exciting collaborations!
DAGA 2021 poster award
At the DAGA Acoustics Annual Conference 2021, one of the poster awards has been given to the work presented by Jonas Heck, Josep Llorca-Bofí and Michael Vorländer, with the title: Hearing Architecture and Seeing Soundscapes: Methodological Approach of Individual Vocabulary Profiling to Evaluate Audiovisual Perception.
Congratulations!
DAGA 2021 – Die Jahrestagung für Akustik
Nachdem im Jahr 2020 die in Hannover geplante DAGA-Tagung ausfallen musste, wurde die DAGA 2021 in den Monat August geschoben. Die Hoffnung, dass die Pandemie die Tagungsdurchführung nichtmehr beeinflusst, hat sich nicht erfüllt, aber immerhin kann die in Wien, vom 15. August bis zum 18. August 2021, stattfindene Konferenz als Hybrid-Veranstaltung durchgeführt werden, d.h. eine Teilnahme ist sowohl vor Ort, als auch Online möglich. Aufgrund der Anweisung der RWTH Aachen, Dienstreisen soweit es geht zu vermeiden, nehmen alle IHTA-Beschäftigten online an der Tagung teil und verzichten somit auf die Reise nach Wien.
Die Tagung beginnt am Sonntag mit drei Vorkolloquien, die meisten Sitzungen finden jedoch an den drei Haupttagen von Montag bis Mittwoch statt. Insgesamt ist das Institut für Hörtechnik und Akustik an 27 wissenschaftlichen Beiträgen beteiligt (21 Vorträge und 6 Poster).
Vortrag am Montag:
Jonathan Ehret, Lukas Aspöck, Andrea Bönsch, Janina Fels, Torsten W. Kuhlen | Speech Source Directivity for Embodied Conversational Agents |
Vorträge am Dienstag:
Vorträge am Mittwoch:
Poster:
Marco Berzborn, Fabian Brinkmann, Simon Kersten, Kai Jurgeit | pyfar: Python Packages for Acoustics Research |
Anne Heimes, Michael Vorländer | A framework to conduct psychoacoustic experiments in virtual reality |
Jonas Heck, Josep Llorca-Bofí, Michael Vorländer | Hearing Architecture and Seeing Soundscapes: Methodological Approach of Individual Vocabulary Profiling to Evaluate Audiovisual Perception |
Lukas Aspöck, Jonathan Ehret, Stefan Baumann, Andrea Bönsch, Christine T. Röhr, Martine Grice, Torsten W. Kuhlen, Janina Fels | Prosodic and visual naturalness of dialogs presented by conversational virtual agents |
Isabel Schiller, Jan Alber, Lukas Aspöck, Chinthusa Mohanathasan, Linda Wetzel, Sabine Schlittmeier | Text-related immersion for varying auditory background scenes |
Karin Loh, Julian Burger, Lukas Aspöck, Janina Fels | EduRA database: room models based on room acoustic measurements in primary and preschools |
Eine Übersicht über alle weiteren Beiträge der Tagung befinden sich in der der DAGA 2021 App.