Interactive sonification
- Members: Dr Andy Hunt
- Website: http://www.interactive-sonification.org/
- Start Date: June 2008
Sonification is the use of sound to render data, so that it can be interpreted by a human being for analytical purposes. It is the audio counterpart of visualisation. The main differences of sound displays over visual displays are that sound can:
- Represent frequency responses in an instant (as timbral characteristics)
- Represent changes over time, naturally
- Allow microstructure to be perceived
- Rapidly portray large amounts of data
- Alert listener to events outside the current visual focus
- Holistically bring together many channels of information
Andy Hunt has worked with several European researchers on this topic, and particularly Dr Thomas Hermann of Bielefeld University, Germany. Together they have launched the Interactive Sonfication Workshop (next one January 2007, York) and have published several papers, including Guest Editing a special issue of IEEE Multimedia on the topic.