• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.1009-1013
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• 2007

To do a HRTF customization, researchers used a spherical head model for modeling the head block of structural modeling of HRTF, which is the one of the technique for HRTF customization, because of its simplicity. In this paper, an analytic spheroidal HRTF caused by an incident point source will be introduced. Using proposed spheroidal HRTF, near-field HRTF customization can be applicable through a structural modeling of HRTF. To see the necessity of sheroidal head model, comparison of two analytic solutions, which are classical spherical HRTF and proposed spheroidal HRTF, will be shown. On the view point of ITD, optimal head model which matches with the measured ITD of KEMAR HRTF can be obtained. ITD results show that there are only slight differences between spherical and spheroidal head model. Magnitude comparison is made by constructing head model using measured head size. Although magnitude comparison is not studied between optimal models, the results of 24 of 36 subjects are shown that spheroidal head model matches notch frequency pattern of measured HRTF better than those of spherical one, where the sound source is at contralateral position.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.409-415
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• 2009

The head-related transfer function (HRTF), which has an important role in virtual sound localization has different characteristics across the subjects. Measuring HRTF is very time-consuming and requires a set of specific apparatus. Accordingly, HRTF customization is often employed. In this paper, we propose a method to search an adequate HRTF from a set of the HRTFs. To achieve rapid and reliable customization of HRTF, all HRTFs in the database are partitioned, where a binary search tree was employed. The distortion measurement adopted in HRTF partitioning was determined in a heuristic way, which predicts the differences in perceived sound location well. The DC-Davis CIPIC HRTF database set was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. In the listening test, where 10 subjects were participated, the stimuli filtered by the HRTF obtained by the proposed method were closer to those by the personalized HRTF in terms of sound localization. Moreover, performance of the proposed method was shown to be superior to the previous customization method, where the HRFT is selected by using anthropometric data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.103-107
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• 2009

Because individual HRTFs (Head-Related Transfer Functions) vary from a person to a person, a HRTF database has been measured by researchers to investigate the inter-subject variation, and to generate high fidelity virtual sound image. Individual HRTFs not only vary between subjects but also vary due to wearing clothes and glasses in daily life. However, influence of different dressing condition on the measured HRTF was not sufficiently investigated. To quantify the effect of wearing clothes and glasses, dummy's HRTF is measured in an anechoic chamber with various dressing condition, and is evaluated in the sense of spectral distortion. HRTFs are measured both in the median plane and in the horizontal plane. In the median plane, under 6kHz, effect of different wearing clothes and glasses is negligible. Over 6kHz, however, effect of clothing distorts HRTF about 6dB in the sense of spectral distortion. Moreover, at high frequencies, effect of glasses is no longer negligible. In the horizontal plane, at some azimuths, even additional light cloth over the dummy can change the spectrum of HRTF (6dB spectral distortion) especially when sound source is at contralateral positions. Therefore, HRTF measurement with different wearing conditions can broaden the capability of HRTF customization whose technique utilizes a HRTF database.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.17 no.7 s.124
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• pp.638-648
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• 2007

A principal components analysis of the entire median HRIRs in the CIPIC HRTF database reveals that the individual HRIRs can be adequately reconstructed by a linear combination of several orthonormal basis functions. The basis functions represent the inter-individual and inter-elevation variations in median HRIRs. There exist elevation-dependent tendencies in the weights of basis functions, and the basis functions can be ordered according to the magnitude of standard deviation of the weights at each elevation. We propose a HRIR customization method via tuning of the weights of 3 dominant basis functions corresponding to the 3 largest standard deviations at each elevation. Subjective listening test results show that both front-back reversal and vertical perception can be improved with the customized HRIRs.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.167-180
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• 2011

Recently, 3-D audio technologies are commonly implemented through headphones. A major problem of the headphone-based 3-D audio is in-the-head localization, which occurs due to the inaccurate Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF). Since the individual measurements of HRTFs are impractical, there have been several researches for HRTF customization. In this paper, an efficient method of customizing HRTFs for the sound externalization is proposed. Firstly, it is determined which part will be customized in HRTF through psychoacoustical experiments. Then, the method controlling spectral notches and envelopes to provide individual localization cues are described. Since the proposed method is based on a critical-band rate, the structure is much simpler than that of previous studies, but still effective. The performance was evaluated through a series of subjective tests, and the results confirmed that the customized HRTF using proposed method could replace the measured individual HRTF successfully.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.934-938
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• 2008

To customize individual characteristics of HRTF, a spherical model has been used for structural modeling technique. A pseudo-code of prolate spheroidal HRTF caused by incident acoustic point source is already developed, and it can be used a head shadow filter for structural modeling of HRTF. In this research, to see the necessity and efficiency of spheroidal head modeling, ITD optimization is performed on CIPIC HRTF database. From given cost function, ITD-optimized spheroidal head model, whose ITD information is the most matched version of measured ITD information, is found by varying head parameters subject by subject. By comparing results of ITD-optimized spheroids and ITD-optimized spheres, we concluded that a spherical head model is more efficient way of generating head shadow effect than a spheroidal head model does.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.641-644
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• 2005

This study reveals some recent attempt in modeling empirically obtained B&K HATS (Head and Torso Simulator) HRTFs (Head Related Transfer Functions) to Isolate parameters that stimulate lateral and elevation perception. Localization using non-individual HRTFs often yields poor performance in synthesizing virtual sound sources when applied to a group of individuals due to differences in size and shape of head, pinnae, and torso. For realization of both effective and efficient virtual audio it is necessary to develop a method to tailor a given set of non-individual HRTFs to fit each listener without measuring his/her HRTF set. Pole-zero modeling is applied to fit HRIRs (Head Related Impulse Responses) and modeling criterions for determining suitable number of parameters are suggested for efficient modeling. Horizontal HRTFs are modeled as minimum-phase transfer functions with appropriate ITDs (Interaural Time Delay) obtained from RTF (Ray Tracing Formula) to better fit the size of listener's head for usage in simple virtualizer algorithms without complex regularization processes. Result of modeling HRTFs in the median plane is shown and parameters responsible for elevation perception are isolated which can be referred to in the future study of developing customizable HRTFs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.120-126
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• 2007

A principal components analysis of the entire median HRIRs in the CIPIC HRTF database reveals that the individual HRIRs can be adequately reconstructed by a linear combination of several orthonormal basis functions. The basis functions cover the inter-individual and inter-elevation variations in median HRIRs. There are elevation-dependent tendencies in the weights of basis functions, and the basis functions can be ordered according to the magnitude of standard deviation of the weights at each elevation. We propose a HRIR customization method via tuning of the weights of 3 dominant basis functions corresponding to the 3 largest standard deviations at each elevation. Subjective listening test results show that both front-back reversal and vertical perception can be improved with the customized HRIRs.