I Am Driving Through Sound Space
Carlos A. Rocha (2004)
Interaction Experience
“I Am Driving Through Sound Space” (IADTSS) is an interactive audio-visual installation. Behaving like a driving simulation, IADTSS immerses the user in a sea of sound. A computer, equipped with a steering wheel, becomes the vehicle of navigation.
IADTSS demonstrates a different way to browse digital information. Using Sound Spatialization and a Strong Physical Interface, a large collection of audio samples can be navigated quickly, in a fun and compelling way.
As the price of digital memory declines and capacity increases, people have started to archive huge collections of digital media. Now, is very common for an ordinary person, to store large quantities of digital pictures, videos and sounds. As this practice increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to browse these vast amounts of information.
When dealing with temporal media such as sound, this problem is even more complicated. Usually, navigation through a sound database requires hearing each sample in a lengthy piece-by-piece fashion, without taking into account the abilities of our senses. The Cocktail Party Effect is one of those abilities. It is the ability of human auditory system is able to distinguish a single sound source from many others, even in the presence of background noise. IADTSS takes advantage of that, by spatially mapping individual sounds from a large collection into a virtual world. The process is performed assigning unique spatial coordinates to each sound.
A user moving freely through the space will hear each sound source coming from their proper location, in a process called Sound Spatialization. The intensity of each sound diminishes as its distance increases from the user, and it is heard in stereo according to its position relative to the user. By implementing the Doppler Effect additional spatial clues are provided: as a user moves towards a source, the pitch of the sound increases and vice versa.
As the size of the database grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate. To facilitate this task, IADTSS provides a more compelling navigation system: a driving wheel and a set of foot pedals. The driving experience simulates a car, familiar to a good group of users. This kind of interface allows traveling through the database at variable speeds without loosing precision. Furthermore, the interface creates a powerful physical control of the virtual world, engaging the full attention of the user.
The result is a complete immersive system, which does not requires intensive and sophisticated computer graphics.
Context
The system was created as part of a larger project called MIT Treehouse Studio, an ongoing effort of the Physical Language Workshop group directed by Prof. John Maeda at the MIT Media Laboratory. Treehouse is an online community, with tools for the creation, manipulation, distribution and critique of creative digital media. All the information created by a user in Treehouse, is stored in a centralized server, and is available in any computer with Internet access. Different sound manipulation tools where developed, as part of the project, which cause a rapid growth in the number of sound clips available in the online storage. IADTSS was born as a response to the problem of navigating, finding and investigating the Treehouse Studio sound database.
Technical Summary
IADTSS is composed of a driving wheel set used in video games, a set of headphones and a computer with display. Custom written software renders in real-time, audio and visual navigational clues. The software implementation requires Java, the OpenGL graphic library and the OpenAL audio library. No network connection is required.
Only regulated electricity is needed. A web connection is optional, as the system can run offline. Ideally, the project will be shown in a quiet, individual space.
System Sketches
Exhibitions
CHI Designing Interactive Systems 2004 Conference Cambridge, Massachussets