Nvidia patents head-tracking system to create 3D audio from few speakers
Nvidia describes a method that uses a camera to track your head position relative to virtual sound sources. It calculates how loud each sound should be at your ears based on distance, then adjusts the output to physical speakers to create a sense of 3D space.
In the filing’s own words
Disclosed are apparatuses, systems, and techniques that provide virtual immersion sound experience and spatialization effects with an audio device supporting a low number of sound channels, according to at least one embodiment. The techniques include but are not limited to associating input audio channels of an audio stream with virtual speakers, identifying, using an optical sensor, positioning of a user's head relative to the virtual speakers, determining simulated sound intensities at one or more reference locations associated with the user's head, and generating, based on the simulated sound intensities, output audio signals configured for physical speakers.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A method comprising: associating audio data of an audio stream transmitted over a plurality of input audio channels with a plurality of virtual speakers; and for each of a plurality of times: identifying, using an optical sensor, a position of a user's head relative to the plurality of virtual speakers at a respective time of the plurality of times; estimating, for the respective time and based at least on the identified position of the user's head, distances from each of the plurality of virtual speakers to one or more reference locations associated with the user's head; determining, for the respective time and based at least on the estimated distances, a plurality of simulated sound intensities at the one or more reference locations associated with the position of the user's head, wherein the simulated sound intensities are associated with the plurality of virtual speakers; and generating, for the respective time and based on the plurality of simulated sound intensities, a plurality of output audio signals configured for a plurality of physical speakers.
Facts
- Company
- Nvidia (NVIDIA Corporation)
- Official title
- Virtual audio augmentation using computer vision
- Patent number
- US12750629B2
- Application number
- 18379582
- Filed
- Oct 12, 2023
- Granted
- Sep 29, 2026
- Inventors
- 4
- Claims
- 19
Classified under
H04S 7/303 Electricity & electronicsG06V 40/168 Physics & computingH04S 2420/01 Electricity & electronicsMore from Nvidia in Audio & voice
Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.