PannerNode HRTF options

The PannerNode.panningModel default mode is HRTF. It is well known that the HRTF set has a large impact on audio quality and individual measurements can improve localisation. The PannerNode currently provides no HRTF selection option so the HRTF set used will be decided by the developer of each implementation. Looking back through the WebKit repository it appears that in this implementation, the HRTF set used is a composite derived from measurements of several individuals in the IRCAM LISTEN database (http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/salles/listen/). Whilst it may be early yet, I think it is important to consider the potential capability for users to apply their own HRTF set. This could allow in future for application developers to set a specific HRTF or potentially for a user to apply their individual measurements.

The simplest way I guess would be to create AudioBuffer objects for HRTFs at specific directions and link this to the PannerNode somehow, but given the number of different directional measurements taken in most HRTF sets (hundreds) this could get quite laborious. It is worth noting that there are efforts going on to create an interchange file format for HRTF datasets. A project has recently been launched in the Audio Engineering Society standards subcommittee SC-02-08 to standardise a file format for exchanging HRTFs (http://www.aes.org/standards/meetings/aes133-sc-02-08-report.cfm), initiated by Matthew Parmentier of France Television. There also exists an open-source project for creating and reading files containing directional audio data, such as HRTF sets (http://www.opendaff.org/).

HRTF filters are effective for headphone playback, to create a convincing spatial impression over loudspeakers a cross-talk cancellation processing is required. Could this be added as an option to the PannerNode perhaps?

Thanks for the great work on the PannerNode so far. Very impressive.

Chris Pike 
Research Engineer - Audio Team
BBC Research & Development

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