AUDIO PROCESSING DEVICE, AUDIO PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM

• US 20120002828A1
• Filed: 06/16/2011
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Muramatsu, Tomoaki, Nakamura, Nobuhiko, Oguchi, Yoshio, Sayama, Masanobu
• Granted Patent: US 9,351,092 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/303
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/30 Image reproducers optical systems for producing stereoscopic or other three-dimensional effects G02B30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/341 using temporal multiplexing
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/642 Disposition of sound reproducers
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2499/15 Transducers incorporated in visual displaying devices, e.g. televisions, computer displays, laptops
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/11 Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field H04S2420/13 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 3/008 in which the audio signals are in digital form, i.e. employing more than two discrete digital channels data reduction aspects thereof based on psychoacoustics G10L19/02

Abstract

There is provided an audio processing device including an estimation unit configured to estimate a user'"'"'s representative perceived position of a stereoscopic image from a difference between a left-eye image and a right-eye image of the stereoscopic image displayed on a display device, and an audio controller configured to control audio output of an audio output device in accordance with the representative perceived position estimated by the estimation unit.

Claims

1. An audio processing device comprising:

an estimation unit configured to estimate a user'"'"'s representative perceived position of a stereoscopic image from a difference between a left-eye image and a right-eye image of the stereoscopic image displayed on a display device; and

an audio controller configured to control audio output of an audio output device in accordance with the representative perceived position estimated by the estimation unit.

2. The audio processing device according to claim 1, wherein

the audio output device includes a front audio output device and a rear audio output device, the rear audio output device being arranged at a position that is farther from the display device than is the front audio output device, and

the audio controller controls audio output of the front audio output device and the rear audio output device in accordance with a distance between the representative perceived position and a reference plane.

3. The audio processing device according to claim 2, wherein the audio controller, when the representative perceived position coincides with the reference plane, supplies a first audio signal to the front audio output device, and supplies a second audio signal to the rear audio output device.

4. The audio processing device according to claim 3, wherein the audio controller, when the representative perceived position is closer to the user than is the reference plane, supplies the first audio signal to the front audio output device and the rear audio output device at a ratio in accordance with a distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane.

5. The audio processing device according to claim 4, wherein the audio controller, as the distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane is longer, supplies the first audio signal to the rear audio output device at a higher rate.

6. The audio processing device according to claim 5, wherein the audio controller, as the distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane is longer, reduces the second audio signal supplied to the rear audio output device.

7. The audio processing device according to claim 3, wherein the audio controller, when the reference plane is closer to the user than is the representative perceived position, supplies the second audio signal to the front audio output device and the rear audio output device at a ratio in accordance with the distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane.

8. The audio processing device according to claim 7, wherein the audio controller, as the distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane is longer, supplies the second audio signal to the front audio output device at a higher rate.

9. The audio processing device according to claim 8, wherein the audio controller, as the distance between the representative perceived position and the reference plane is longer, reduces the first audio signal supplied to the front audio output device.

10. The audio processing device according to claim 1, wherein the estimation unit estimates a user'"'"'s perceived position(s) of one or more image objects included in the left-eye image and the right-eye image, and estimates the representative perceived position on the basis of the perceived position(s) of the one or more image objects.

11. The audio processing device according to claim 10, wherein the estimation unit estimates as the representative perceived position one of the perceived positions of the image objects.

12. The audio processing device according to claim 10, wherein the estimation unit estimates as the representative perceived position a mean value of the perceived positions of the image objects.

13. The audio processing device according to claim 1, wherein the estimation unit estimates user'"'"'s perceived positions of a plurality of regions that are obtained by dividing the left-eye image and the right-eye image, and estimates the representative perceived position on the basis of a distribution of the perceived positions of the plurality of regions.

14. An audio processing method comprising:

estimating a user'"'"'s representative perceived position of a stereoscopic image from a difference between a left-eye image and a right-eye image of the stereoscopic image displayed on a display device; and

controlling audio output of an audio output device in accordance with the representative perceived position.

15. A program for causing a computer to function as:

an estimation unit configured to estimate a user'"'"'s representative perceived position of a stereoscopic image from a difference between a left-eye image and a right-eye image of the stereoscopic image displayed on a display device; and

an audio controller configured to control audio output of an audio output device in accordance with the representative perceived position estimated by the estimation unit.