The application of adaptive beam tracing and managed DirectX for the visualisation and auralisation of virtual environments

The paper outlines the generation of virtual environments using the author's own adaptive beam tracing algorithm for the prediction of room acoustics. Details of this novel algorithm were first published in the Journal of Acoustics Society of America in 1999. Essentially the algorithm simulates the propagation of sound within an environment using reflected beams whose shape is governed by the shape of reflecting surfaces. Hence the adaptive beam tracing avoids spurious and missing reflections or large computation times associated with other methods whilst providing the prediction of both specular and diffuse sound propagation. The current implementation uses the new managed DirectX API for simulating visually and aurally virtual environments and explores possibility of real time acoustic rendering using predicted acoustics in conjunction with the 3D rendering classes offered by managed DirectX.