Audio noise mapping in virtual urban simulations : enhancing public awareness

One of the key difficulties with urban environmental noise mapping is disseminating results from noise studies in a manner that is easily understood by the general public. Indeed, it is one of the requirements of the Environmental Noise Directive (END) that information from noise studies is disseminated to the general public so that awareness of environmental noise issues is increased. This paper presents preliminary work undertaken to integrate results from environmental noise studies into a virtual sound environment. The model uses appropriate sound mixing techniques to integrate background sound from prediction
software while direct sound is integrated from appropriate sound samples. In the virtual environment sound is output using audio rendering and clustering techniques which take account of the position of the individual in the virtual environment. The model demonstrates the possibility of using virtual urban simulations as a framework for
evaluating the environmental and visual impact of major urban developments particularly in terms of the impact on the surrounding urban soundscape. In addition, the model framework may be used as a demonstration method whereby the sensitivity of the urban sound environment to different traffic management scenarios is presented to urban inhabitants.