A Series of Three Mixed Reality Workshops:                         
Sounding Out Sound in Mixed Reality Environment                  

Ramon Gonzales-Arroyo, Heike Staff, John Bowers 
CID, Centre for User Oriented IT Design
NADA, Deptartment of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science
KTH (Royal Institute of Technology)
SE-10044 Stockhom, Sweden
Telephone: +46(0)87909100
Fax: +46(0)87909099   
E-mail: cid@nada.kth.se
URL: http://cid.nada.kth.se


A Series of Three Mixed Reality Workshops: Sounding Out  Sound in Mixed Reality Environment

ABSTRACT                      
The second workshop in the series of practical mixed reality workshops, defined in
Workpackage 7b.1, focusses on sound. This is the topic with which most of the eRENA
partners have to deal: finding technical and aesthetic solutions for sound, within an image
oriented mixed environment. Virtual (and mixed) reality environments often lack a
convincing solution for all aspects of sound.
The  workshop took place at the ZKM, on December, 2nd and 3rd 1999. Five lectures
and demonstrations, presented by eRENA partners collaborators, alternated with
discussions among the participants.
The deliverable documents the content of the workshop structured in four parts: sound
in relation to its form of data, in relation to space, to image, and to interaction. One of the
achievements of the workshop was in showing how many different relationships are
existing around these four aspects. Artistic and pragmatic use of sound in mixed reality
environments were regarded as well as the different accesses to visual and audio matters.


References                                                                                              
1 See the scientific references of William Gaver on http://www.crd.rca.ac.uk/~bill/ref.htm.              
2 Gerhard Eckel: Applications of the Cyberstage Spatial Sound Server. Proceedings of the                 
16th AES International Conference on Spatial Sound Reproduction  1999; GMD Sankt                        
Augustin                                                                                                
3 Bernd  Lintermann & Torsten Belschner : SonoMorphis  Interactive installation with                    
genetic graphics and sound. SonoMorphis has been shown at the exhibition surrog,ate                     
Nov 1st - Dec 6th 1998 at the ZKM Institute for Visual Media. The image was projected                   
onto the front wall of a room of 6m width and 7m depth. The projection size was 5 x 3m.                 
The interface consists out of a mixing board plus chair which were installed 4,50m in                   
front of the screen. The image was projected in stereo using Chrystal Eyes Shutter                      
Glasses. The moving sound sources were projected quadrophonically with two speakers                     
in front and two in the rear. SonoMorphis has also been shown during the 11th Stuttgarter               
Filmwinter, Jan 14th - 17th 1999, in the CAVE of the IAO, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in                    
Stuttgart. The user interface was located in front of the CAVE.                                         
http://i31www.ira.uka.de/~linter/SonoMorphis                                                            
4 www.particles.de                                                                                       
5 Pierre Dutilleux and Christian Mueller-Tomfelde: AML: Architecture and Music                           
 th Laboratory. A Museum Installation. AES 16
International Conference on Spatial Sound Reproduction 1999)                                                                                      
6 Espaces Nouveaux/IRCAM. Spatialisateur, the Spat Processor and its Library of Max                      
Objects. Reference Manual. IRCAM 1995 & Jot J.M.,  Warusfel O. 1995. A Real-Time                        
Spatial Sound Processor for Music and Virtual Reality Applications. In: Proc. of the 1995               
International Computer Music Conference. International Computer Music Association,                      
San Francisco, 1995.                                                                                    
7 see for example: W. Gaver: How do we Hear in the World? Exploration in Ecological                      
Acoustics. Ecological Psychology, 5(4): 285-313 1993                                                    
8 M. Radenkovic, C.M. Greenhalgh, S.D. Benford: "A Scaleable Audio Service for                           
Collaborative Virtual Environments", UKVRSIG99, Salford, September, 1999, Springer                     
Press.                                                                                                  
9 Milena Radenkovic, Chris Greenhalgh, Steve Benford: Inhabited TV: Multimedia                           
Broadcasting from Large Scale Collaborative Virtual World, Telsiks 99, Vol1, p68-72,                    
IEEE Catalog Number: 99EX365                                                                            
10 Gerhard Eckel, 1994. Camera Musica. In: Gisela Nauck (ed) Interaktive Musik,                          
Positionen 21. Berlin, 1994. pp. 25-28.                                                                 
11 Gerhard Eckel, 1997. Exploring Musical Space by Means of Virtual Architecture. Proc.                  
of the 8th International Symposium on Electronic Art. School of the Art Institute of                    
Chicago, Chicago, 1997.                                                                                 
12 www.particles.de (December 1999)                                                                      
13 see eRENA Deliverable D6.4.