Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG) with Sound Support

DirectSound and DirectSound3D achieve an integrated visual and audio capability on a Windows-based personal computer.

VRSG 's sound generation support enables you to add sounds to events and entities in a virtual world. The 3D sound support uses the DirectSound and DirectSound3D API (part of the Microsoft DirectX SDK) to achieve an integrated visual and audio capability on a personal computer. DirectSound and DirectSound3D provide low-latency sound mixing, hardware acceleration, and direct access to the sound device in a hardware independent manner.

The close coupling of Direct3D and DirectSound provide 3D sound in the VRSG application with a minimum reduction in frame rate.

DirectSound supports the following features that are supported by a large number of PC sound card providers:

• Perception of sound positions
• Listeners
• Sound cones
• Minimum and maximum distances
• Position versus velocity
• Integration with Direct3D
• Units of measure and distance factors
• Mono and stereo sources

You can easily add sounds to a virtual world by using sound sampling software (standard with most sound cards) to record the sound required to be associated with a particular event. Many commercial sound libraries exist that will provide inexpensive audio CDs for any sound you could imagine. You then add the resulting *.WAV file to a VRSG Windows configuration file and associate with a DIS enumeration event.

Sound support is included in the VRSG product. You can order VRSG directly from MetaVR.