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FrancoAngeli Journals

Scientific papers

Vol. 49 No. 1 (2025)

Realization of the “Camera dei Diamanti” and performance evaluation of the sound spatialization

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/ria1-2025oa19121
Submitted
gennaio 10, 2025
Published
2025-09-22

Abstract

“Camera dei Diamanti” is the virtual reality lab of the University of Ferrara. The main applications range from medicine and psychology to industry. Practical examples are acoustical prosthesis research, speech intelligibility, sound quality of industrial products, education and safety training. This work shows the physical realization of the hardware, so how 41 loudspeakers (including a subwoofer), an acoustic treatment and virtual reality glasses were added to an audiometric chamber. These make it possible to reproduce realistic virtual reality scenarios; the audio playback is achieved using Ambisonics technology, that is a standard nowadays for those labs; the video reproduction is managed by Unity.

An objective methodology, based on multichannel microphones, has been developed to evaluate the performance of spatialization of the sound in order to be aware of the hardware’s limits. The results obtained for the “Camera dei Diamanti” are encouragingly positive since the reproduction error evaluated for single source, both real and virtual ones, is around 1°-2°. These values are comparable to the human capability to distinguish two sounds coming from different directions under optimal conditions.

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