A three-stage method is presented to interactively sonify spatially located data sets, such that both individual point sources and overviews of larger areas can be explored. First, a region of interest in the data set is defined. Delimiting the data points by area and other means corresponds to search with multiple keys in a geographic data base. Second, the selected values are mapped to parameters of simulated sound sources at corresponding locations, which are recorded by visually controllable microphone probes. The probes are shown on the visualized data landscape with their cut-off areas and data selections. At the last stage the sounds are spatialized according to distance and location of sources relative to the probes, adding echoes and reverberation from a virtual acoustic environment. We are experimenting with a listening room with loudspeakers and a headphone setting with realtime computation of the head-related transfer function (HRTF). Combined with interactive visualization, this kind of sonification helps as a navigational aid to locate interesting spots of data. The system allows arbitrary mapping of data channels to visual and sonic parameters, which facilitates flexible exploration of multivariate data.

Date Published: 7 April 1995
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 2410, Visual Data Exploration and Analysis II, (7 April 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.205961

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2410:
Visual Data Exploration and Analysis II
Richard N. Ellson; Georges G. Grinstein; Robert F. Erbacher, Editor(s)