Aurally and Visually Enhanced Audio Search

Google Tech Talks October 1, 2008 ABSTRACT To create enhanced user interfaces for retrieval and processing of audio and other media, we developed a range of techniques that leverage the human brain's enormous capabilities in visual and auditory perception and draw on computer graphics as well as automated acoustic content analysis and new applications of human-computer interface devices. Our aim is to put more fun into these tasks--for both casual and professional users--and to provoke serendipity. We demonstrate--among other examples--how to quickly search through large collections of sound effects by listening to several ones simultaneously, with the user being immersed in a spatial field of sounds. We show how to find music files with the help of procedurally generated icons that replace the standard file icons--a fleet-footed application of visual data mining for non-experts. Today, not only collections of media files can become overwhelming, but also collections of effect software can. To address this issue, we show how to represent a collection of audio plug-in effects as virtual folders through a FUSE system. Speaker: Sebastian Heise Sebastian Heise is a M.Sc. student in the Digital Media program of Hochschule Bremen (University of Applied Sciences), Germany. Sebastian has worked as a sound designer in game development teams at Gauselmann Group. Speaker: Michael Hlatky Michael Hlatky is a M.Sc. student in the Digital Media program of Hochschule Bremen (University of Applied Sciences), Germany. Michael has done research on sound quality for Bang a/s and AUDI AG. Speaker: Jorn Loviscach Jorn Loviscach is a professor in the Digital Media program of Hochschule Bremen (University of Applied Sciences), Germany. Jorn works on computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and audio and music computing. He is a regular contributor to conferences such as SIGGRAPH, Eurographics and the AES Convention. In addition, he has published numerous chapters in book series such as Game Programming Gems and ShaderX Programming.