Placement of talkers in 2D or 3D conference scene

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9749473-B2
Application number	US-201314384780-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 21, 2013
Priority date	Mar 23, 2012
Publication date	Aug 29, 2017
Grant date	Aug 29, 2017

Abstract

The present document relates to setting up and managing two-dimensional or three-dimensional scenes for audio conferences. A conference controller ( 111, 175 ) configured to place an upstream audio signal ( 123, 173 ) associated with a conference participant within a 2D or 3D conference scene to be rendered to a listener ( 211 ) is described. An X-point conference scene with X different spatial talker locations ( 212 ) is set up within the conference scene, wherein the X talker locations ( 212 ) are positioned within a cone around a midline ( 215 ) in front of a head of the listener ( 211 ). A generatrix ( 216 ) of the cone and the midline ( 215 ) form an angle which is smaller than or equal to a pre-determined maximum cone angle. The upstream audio signal ( 123, 173 ) is assigned to one of the talker locations ( 212 ) and metadata identifying the assigned talker location ( 212 ) are generated, thus enabling a spatialized audio signal.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A conference system, comprising:
apparatus configured to receive a plurality of upstream audio signals associated with a plurality of conference participants; and
a conference controller configured to place the plurality of upstream audio signals within a 2D or 3D conference scene to be rendered to a listener, wherein the conference controller is configured to
set up an X-point conference scene with X different spatial talker locations within the conference scene, X being an integer, X>1; wherein the X talker locations are positioned within a cone around a midline in front of the head of the listener; wherein a generatrix of the cone and the midline form an angle which is smaller than or equal to a pre-determined maximum cone angle;
determine a preferred side of the listener; wherein the preferred side is a left side or a right side from the midline; wherein the preferred side of the listener is determined based on a previously-configured preference setting of a terminal used for rendering the 2D or 3D conference scene to the listener, wherein the preference setting is configured prior to a process of populating the X-point conference scene;
assign the plurality of upstream audio signals to respective ones of the X talker locations in accordance to a sequential order of the plurality of upstream audio signals, while starting to populate the X-point conference scene on the preferred side of the listener and while populating the X-point conference scene such that the X-point conference scene leans towards the preferred side of the listener; and
generate metadata identifying the assigned talker location and enabling an audio processing unit to generate a spatialized audio signal based on the upstream audio signal;
wherein when rendering the spatialized audio signal to the listener, the listener perceives the upstream audio signal as coming from the assigned talker location.

2. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein an angular distance between adjacent talker locations of the X talker locations differs for different talker locations wherein the angular distance between adjacent talker locations of the X talker locations increases with increasing distance of the adjacent talker locations from the midline.

3. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein the maximum cone angle is any of 30, 20 or 15 degrees.

4. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein
if X is even, half of the X talker locations are at one side of the midline or at one side of a vertical plane going through the midline, and the other half of the X talker locations are at the other side of the midline or at the other side of the vertical plane going through the midline; and/or
if X is odd, (X−1)/2 of the X talker locations are at the one side and (X+1)/2 are at the other side of the midline or the vertical plane.

5. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein
the X talker locations are positioned on X rays from the head of the listener forming X talker angles with the midline, respectively;
talker angles in one direction from the midline are positive and talker angles in an opposite direction from the midline are negative; and
a sum of the X talker angles is different from zero.

6. The conference system of claim 5 , wherein X=3; and wherein the X talker locations are positioned at the talker angles of −2 degrees, +6 degrees and −10 degrees from the midline.

7. The conference system of claim 5 , wherein X=6; and wherein the X talker locations are positioned at the talker angles of:
either:
−2 degrees, +3 degrees, −7 degrees, +8 degrees, −12 degrees, and +13 degrees from the midline, or +2 degrees, −5 degrees, +9 degrees, −12 degrees, +16 degrees, and −19 degrees from the midline.

8. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein the sequential order of the plurality of upstream audio signals is based on an order of detection of the plurality of upstream audio signals by the conference controller.

9. The conference system of claim 8 , wherein the conference controller is configured to assign the X talker locations in an order of increasing absolute angular distance from the midline.

10. The conference system of claim 9 , wherein subject to assigning an upstream audio signal from the plurality of upstream audio signals to an outer-most talker location from the X talker locations, the conference controller is configured to assign a next upstream audio signal from the plurality of upstream audio signals to an inner-most talker location from the X talker locations.

11. The conference system of claim 8 , wherein the conference controller is configured to assign multiple upstream audio signals from the plurality of upstream audio signals to at least one of the X talker locations, if a number of upstream audio signals is greater than the number X of talker locations.

12. The conference system of claim 8 , wherein the conference controller is configured to place the plurality of upstream audio signals in accordance to one or more of the following placement rules:
to assign a next upstream audio signal from the plurality of upstream audio signals to a talker location of the X talker locations, which has not been assigned and which is as close as possible to the midline;
to re-assign an empty talker location from the X talker locations, which has been left empty by an interruption of an already assigned upstream audio signal from the plurality of upstream audio signals.

13. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein
the conference scene is a 3D conference scene; and
at least some of the X different spatial talker locations are located at different azimuth and/or inclination angles with respect to the midline, wherein the X different spatial talker locations are arranged in a plurality of vertical layers at different inclination angles; and/or
each vertical layer comprises a plurality of different spatial talker locations at different azimuth angles; and/or
the different spatial talker locations in a first vertical layer and the different spatial talker locations in a second vertical layer have corresponding azimuth angles.

14. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein the conference controller is configured to
receive information regarding a status of an upstream audio signal; and
assign the upstream audio signal to a spatial talker location based on the status of the upstream audio signal, wherein the status indicates that the upstream audio signal corresponds to a chairperson or organizer of the conference; and
the spatial talker location that the upstream audio signal is assigned to is a center-most spatial talker location.

15. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein
the preferred side is correlated with a left or right handedness of the listener; and/or the preference setting comprises a mouse setting of the terminal used for rendering the 2D or 3D conference scene to the listener.

16. The conference system of claim 1 , wherein the conference controller is configured to select the X-point conference scene with X different spatial talker locations from a set of pre-determined X-point conference scenes with X different pre-determined spatial talker locations.

17. An audio conferencing system, comprising
a talker terminal configured to generate an upstream audio signal associated with a conference participant;
a conference system according to claim 1 , wherein the conference controller is configured to assign the upstream audio signal to a talker location within a 2D or 3D conference scene and configured to generate metadata identifying the assigned talker location; and

Assignees

• Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp

Inventors

• Eckert Michael
• Spittle Gary
• Hollier Michael P

Classifications

• H04M3/568 Primary

  audio processing specific to telephonic conferencing, e.g. spatial distribution, mixing of participants (echo suppression in two-way loud-speaking telephone systems H04M9/02; sound field processing per se H04S7/30) · CPC title

• H04S5/00

  Pseudo-stereo systems, e.g. in which additional channel signals are derived from monophonic signals by means of phase shifting, time delay or reverberation · CPC title

• H04S2400/11

  Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field (H04S2420/13 takes precedence) · CPC title