An Overview of Techniques on Sound Propagation Simulation

With the rapid development of computer technology, the simulation techniques of sound propagation in virtual environment have been greatly improved. It has been widely applied to the virtual reality. In this paper, the concept and algorithm of sound propagation in virtual environment are surveyed systematically. This paper introduced the geometric-based sound propagation method, such as image source method, ray tracing method, beam tracing method and acoustic radiance method, and discussed the reflection and diffraction effects in the process of sound propagation. Giving a detailed description of wave-based sound propagation, such as finite element method, boundary element method, finite difference time domain method, equivalent source method and the directional propagation in wave acoustics, the hybrid method based on space-frequency decomposition is introduced. The methods described in the paper were compared according to the existing assessment standards and the expanded method under the nonlinear medium was introduced. This paper proposed the future research direction in this field of study and a database-based idea.