Spatial Audio in Graphical Applications

The use of audio in human-computer interfaces is gaining much attention nowadays. A neglected issue in this regard is the fact that human beings perceive sounds in a spatial context. Simulated spatial sound presented over headphones has many potential uses in a number of elds, such as virtual reality, visualization, and three dimensional drawing applications. This thesis presents the results of a study of literature on the spatial sound perception of human beings, as well as the state of a airs in spatial sound simulation. In addition, a simple experimental system for spatial sound simulation is presented, along with the results of several experiments that were conducted with this system. The system, called the SAGA system (Spatial Audio in Graphical Applications), was built to investigate the usability of spatial sound in three dimensional graphical applications such as visualization and three dimensional drawing. Two primary uses of spatial sound in such applications are envisioned: (1) the active localization of virtual sound sources in a three dimensional virtual environment, in order to be able to move the point of view or a three dimensional cursor towards this sound source, and (2) as an aid in the position determination of a cursor in a three dimensional virtual environment. The result