The topic of auralization deals with virtual audio: the analysis and synthesis of sound in space. Auralization concepts like the HRTF (head-related transfer function) and Wave Field Synthesis can be used to fool human ears into thinking sound is coming from a virtual source. Ambisonics is a spatial audio coding technique, and the Digital Waveguide Mesh allows us to simulate acoustic physics in software. These technologies are the auditory analogue of stereoscopic 3D and virtual reality. Less research literature has been devoted to the virtual audio domain than the related visual domain, but it is a very interesting subject because recent developments, especially in wave field synthesis, allow us to very convincingly fool our ears.
Matt Montag 2010