Acoustic Control Apparatus and Acoustic Control Method

• US 20120114137A1
• Filed: 10/17/2011
• Published: 05/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Tsurumi, Shingo
• Granted Patent: US 9,967,690 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/92
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/303 Tracking of listener position or orientation

Abstract

Disclosed herein is an acoustic control apparatus including: a speaker-position computation section configured to find the position of each of a plurality of speakers located in a speaker layout space on the basis of a position computed as the microphone position in the speaker layout space based on a taken image of at least any of the microphone and an object placed at a location close to the microphone position, and a result of sound collection to collect a signal sound each generated by one of the speakers; and an acoustic control section configured to control a sound generated by each of the speakers by computing a user position in the speaker layout space based on a taken image of the user, computing the distance between the user position and the position of each of the speakers, and controlling sounds generated by the speakers according to the computed distances.

Claims

1. An acoustic control apparatus comprising:

a speaker-position computation section configured to find the position of each of a plurality of speakers located in a speaker layout space on the basis of a position computed as the position of a microphone in the speaker layout space based on a taken image of at least any of the microphone and an object placed at a location close to the position of the microphone, and a result of sound collection carried out by the microphone to collect a signal sound each generated by one of the speakers; and

an acoustic control section configured to carry out control of a sound generated by each of the speakers by computing the position of a user in the speaker layout space on the basis of a taken image of the user, computing the distance between the position of the user and the position of each of the speakers, and controlling sounds generated by the speakers according to the computed distances.

2. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speaker-position computation section finds the position of each of the speakers located in the speaker layout space on the basis of the position of the microphone, and the distance between the position of the microphone and the position of each of the speakers computed by making use of the volume of the signal sound generated by each of the speakers and collected by the microphone.

3. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the acoustic control section makes use of the distance between the position of the user and the position of each of the speakers in order to dynamically change positions used for setting sounds generated by the speakers.

4. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising:

an image processing section configured to process a taken image of the user;

wherein the image processing section extracts at least any of metadata of the user, the number of other users shown on the taken image, and a gesture made by the user on the basis of the taken image of the user, and

the acoustic control section performs at least any of processing of setting sounds generated by the speakers and adjusting the quality of the sounds in accordance with at least any of the metadata of the user, the number of other users shown on the taken image, and the gesture made by the user.

5. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image processing section configured to process taken images of at least any of the microphone and the object placed at a location close to the position of the microphone;

wherein the image processing section detects the face of the user approaching the microphone as the object placed at a location close to the position of the microphone.

6. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an image processing section configured to process taken images of at least any of the microphone and the object placed at a location close to the position of the microphone;

wherein the image processing section detects the microphone or a visual marker provided on the microphone.

7. The acoustic control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the speaker-position computation section finds the position of each of the speakers on the basis of a result of collection of signal sounds output from the speakers and collected by making use of a monaural microphone, a stereo microphone and a multi-channel microphone.

8. An acoustic control method, comprising:

computing the position of a microphone in a speaker layout space, in which a plurality of speakers are laid out, on the basis of taken images of at least any of the microphone and an object placed at a location close to the position of the microphone;

finding the position of each of the speakers laid out in the speaker layout space on the basis of the computed position of the microphone and a result of sound collection carried out by the microphone to collect signal sounds each generated by one of the speakers; and

controlling a sound generated by each of the speakers in accordance with a computed position of the user and the distance from the position of the user to the position of each of the speakers.