Deriving sound from simulated interactions

[SophieP]

Hi all,

First, I hope this is in the right place, apologies if it isn't.

I'm looking into the possibility of deriving sound from the simulated actions of simple bodies in a 3D space.

As a toy example of my aim, I hope to be able to compute the sound that would be generated by a metal ball falling on a wooden block.

To do this, I hope to the the position, rotation, velocity, weight, mass, density and shape of the wooden block, the metal ball, and the domain of the simulation to calculate the resulting waveform generated by the collision of the block and the ball.
Using this data, the aim would be to simulate the propagation of the waveform through the transmission media (air, for instance), to the designated receiver (or virtual microphone) point.
This would all be precomputed, and is certainly not an attempt at a 'real-time' simulation.

I think that once the wave is generated, its propagation will not be a significant problem, as this is covered already in acoustic theory.

I have researched this online, and it does appear to be actively researched: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/sound/

Thanks again,

Sophie

 

[.Scott]

If I understand what you are trying to do, it sounds as though you want to set up a 3D model, model a collision, and generate a *.WAV file so that you can hear what the a real collision would have sounded like. If that's what you want to do, it would be quite a project. You should borrow from as many sources as possible.