Sound Field

The sound map is now editable in orthographic 3D.

I just found this project titled SonicFields with a similar idea of mediating visual 3D soundscapes on the web. It’s great to see that others are working in the same direction. I couldn’t find a full project description, but an introduction to a talk by the creator Selçuk Artut at CIID Copenhagen sums up:

SonicFields explores an immersed sonic experience in a virtual 3D online environment through a 2D flat screen surface. Users are allowed to register and upload their sounds to create their own soundscapes. With its user-centric accumulation points, SonicFields-as its name proposes- is a remediated 3D soundscape, a model of sonicworld with multitude of sounds emerging from various vibrations.

I have been working on a script that allow the user to morph a procedural 3D form into different abstract archetypes. The aim was to create one super object that can be manipulated and multiplied to resemble abstracted versions of cityscapes, vegetation, microorganisms and fluffy dreamlike candyfloss structures to be placed in the landscape. I must admit that I am not quite there yet, and I might have to compromise and make use of static 3D objects in the end.

The editor will have three main panels; a map for editing the soundscape (upper left), a context sensitive inspector panel (lower right) and an output preview (upper right). Be aware that the look with change drastically.

Patrik Svenssons work on the sound visualisation. We aim to animate particles in the area of the sound sources and render them to a texture that is used for a refraction effect on the final render image. This will hopefully generate the effect an energy field surrounding the sound source.

Patrik Svenssons work on the procedural landscape for Sound Field. The landscape is segmented into patches that are dynamically updated to a higher resolution in the near field of the first person camera. In the video above he experimented with animating the landscape using a dynamic height map. We hope to animate the height map in earthquake like movements around the areas in which the sound sources are placed.

Sonic Postcards is a great source of inspiration for us. Visit their site and listen to soundscapes made by 3000(+) kids mainly from England.

Metroplex is an expanding collection of imaginary cityscapes expressed by sound artists. Each ‘city’ consists of a number of sound loops that are randomly placed inside a procedurally generated 3D structure. The visitor is sent out on an explorative journey into a non-linear sound universe without a fixed time frame, in which he/she/they can either move about freely or pause in order to delve more deeply into a particular sound.

Metroplex is intended as a new space for web based sound experiences; a space that allows for a restful, in depth immersion that is otherwise difficult to find on the internet.

The idea was conceived in 2007 during my exchange scholarship at Emily Carr in Vancouver and was since developed in collaboration with Jakob Weigand Goetz in 2008-2009. The project serves as a conceptual and technical foundation for Sound Field.

Metroplex was developed with support from The Heritage Agency of Denmark and KODA (Danish society that administers Danish and international copyrights for composers, songwriters and music publishers). It was first launched in December 2008 as a pilot project for the web-based mediation of art-music and sound-art across genres and has since been subject to a number of updates.

In 2006 I was part of a teachers team with visual artist Henriette Brun and writer Dy Plambeck conducting a workshop for 5th graders at Islands Brygge Skole.

During the first two days Dy guided the kids in writing personal stories. The next couple of days Henriette helped them visualise those stories by taking photos, painting, drawing and manipulating images in Photoshop. The last three days I guided them in the creation of ambient soundscapes for their stories. The last day the kids gathered in groups of three and helped each other changing slides, controlling the sound and telling their story in front of an audience of parents and relatives.

What worked out great was that by covering both verbal, visual and auditive languages, all the kids had a good chance of being brilliant at something. I was surprised what intimate stories came out and how confident they were in presenting them.

The software for controlling the soundscapes live was a Max/MSP patch I had created specifically for the workshop. It consisted of a plane on which sounds were positioned. By dragging an icon resembling a head as seen from above, the kids could control their position in a soundscape, and in effect mix and pan several sounds with the stroke of a computer mouse.

This video by Marcus Wendt and friends is a source of great inspiration. It should be noted that the video was not rendered in realtime.

http://www.field.io/project/interim-camp