Perceived quality and spatial impression of room reverberation in VR reproduction from measured images and acoustics

Virtual reality (VR) systems have emerged as platforms for personal interactive audio-visual media experiences. In order to have a real-world reference against which to evaluate the room acoustics reproduced within VR, methods are needed to compare the virtual experience with that of a real room. In this work, two pipelines were developed for evaluating room reverberation over headphones within VR, acoustically and visually. The acoustical pipeline involves parameterisation of B-format room impulse responses via the reverberant spatial audio object (RSAO) and subsequent binaural rendering. The visual pipeline uses stereo 360◦ images to reconstruct the room geometry and materials that are then translated into binaural via two popular VR software development kits. Audio-visual subjective tests were conducted to evaluate the perceived quality and spatial impression of real rooms, using hidden anchors. The results show RSAO to be the better reverb estimator. However, the vision-based pipeline proved to provide a better listening experience when compared to the use of sounds carrying wrong acoustics. Future work will examine interactivity with realistic spatial room reverberation.