DETERMINATION OF A ROOM DIMENSION ESTIMATE

• US 20160061597A1
• Filed: 04/24/2014
• Published: 03/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips N.V.
• Inventors: DE BRUIJN, Werner Paulus Josephus
• Granted Patent: US 9,909,863 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 17/00 Measuring arrangements characterised by the use of infrasonic, sonic or ultrasonic vibrations
• CPC Class Codes: G01H 7/00 Measuring reverberation time ; room acoustic measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/301 Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/305 Electronic adaptation of stereophonic audio signals to reverberation of the listening space H04S7/301 takes precedence

Abstract

An apparatus for determining a room dimension estimate comprises a receiver (101) providing an acoustic room response e.g. generated from acoustic measurements. A peak detector (103) detects a set of peaks in the acoustic room response in a frequency interval having an upper frequency of no more than 400 Hz. A store (107) comprises a set of peak profiles with associated room dimension data, and an estimator (105) determines the room dimension estimate from the associated room dimension data and a comparison of the set of peaks to the peak profiles. The estimator may perform the steps of first finding a matching peak profile for the set of peaks from the set of peak profiles; extracting first room dimension data associated with the matching peak profile(s) from the store; and determining the room dimension estimate in response to the first room dimension data. The peak profiles may represent calculated Eigenfrequencies.

Claims

1. An apparatus for determining a room dimension estimate, the apparatus comprising

a receiver for providing an acoustic room response;

a peak detector for detecting a set of peaks in the acoustic room response in a frequency interval, the frequency interval having an upper frequency of no more than 400 Hz;

a store for storing a set of peak profiles with associated room dimension data;

an estimator for determining the room dimension estimate in response to the associated room dimension data and a comparison of the set of peaks to the set of peak profiles.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the estimator comprises:

a searcher for finding at least one matching peak profile for the set of peaks from the set of peak profiles;

an extractor for extracting first room dimension data associated with the at least one matching peak profile from the store; and

an estimate generator for determining the room dimension estimate in response to the first room dimension data.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein each peak profile comprises a set of frequencies of peaks.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the searcher is arranged to determine a distance measure for each peak profile in response to a comparison of frequencies of the set of peaks and the set of frequencies of the peak profile;

and to select the matching peak profile in response to the distance measures.

5. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein each peak profile comprises a set of probability values, each probability value indicating a probability of a peak being measured in a frequency interval.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the searcher is arranged to determine a likelihood measure for each peak profile in response to the probability values of the peak profile and the frequencies of the set of peaks;

and to select the matching peak profile in response to the likelihood measures.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each peak profile comprises a set of Eigenfrequencies calculated for a room and the associated room dimension data comprises an indication of dimensions for the room used to calculate the Eigenfrequencies.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the associated room dimension for at least some of the peak profiles comprises at least one one-dimensional value, and the estimator is arranged to generate the room dimension estimate to comprise at least one one-dimensional value.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the estimator is arranged to generate a match indication for the set of peaks and each peak profile of the set of profiles;

and to generate the dimension estimate by a weighted combination of the associated room dimension data;

the weight for associated room dimension data for a first peak profile of the set of peak profiles depending on the match indication for the first peak profile.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the associated room dimension for at least some of the peak profiles comprises a plurality of one-dimensional values corresponding to different directions, and the estimator is arranged to determine averaged match indications for a subset of the directions in response to an averaging of match indications for the peak profiles over at least one direction not in the subset;

and to determine one-dimensional room dimension estimates for the directions of the subset in response to the averaged match indications.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the receiver is arranged to receive a plurality of acoustic room responses corresponding to different positions of at least one of a sound source and a microphone;

and the apparatus is arranged to perform a combination for the plurality of acoustic room responses.

12. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the combination includes at least one of an averaging of comparisons between sets of peaks corresponding to different acoustic room responses and the set of peak profiles and an averaging of room dimension estimates determined for different acoustic room responses.

13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the combination comprises generating the set of peaks by including peaks from more than one of the plurality of acoustic room responses.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the estimator is arranged to weigh at least one of different peaks of the set of peaks and different peaks of a peak profile differently when performing the comparison.

15. A method of determining a room dimension estimate, the method comprising:

providing an acoustic room response;

detecting a set of peaks in the acoustic room response in a frequency interval, the frequency interval having an upper frequency of no more than 400 Hz;

providing a set of peak profiles with associated room dimension data; and

determining the room dimension estimate in response to the associated room dimension data and a comparison of the set of peaks to the set of peak profiles.