Audio camera using microphone arrays for real time capture of audio images and method for jointly processing the audio images with video images
US8229134B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 27, 2008 |
| Grant date | Jul 24, 2012 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 26, 2031 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04R2430/20
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Spherical microphone arrays provide an ability to compute the acoustical intensity corresponding to different spatial directions in a given frame of audio data. These intensities may be exhibited as an image and these images are generated at a high frame rate to achieve a video image if the data capture and intensity computations can be performed sufficiently quickly, thereby creating a frame-rate audio camera. A description is provided herein regarding how such a camera is built and the processing done sufficiently quickly using graphics processors. The joint processing of and captured frame-rate audio and video images enables applications such as visual identification of noise sources, beamforming and noise-suppression in video conferencing and others, by accounting for the spatial differences in the location of the audio and the video cameras. Based on the recognition that the spherical array can be viewed as a central projection camera, such joint analysis can be performed.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.