Well, it seems that the VICUG-L archive server doesn't like
long lines, because it messed up the posting as viewed
through the on-line archive. so here follows a reformatted
version of the same posting. Hopefully this version will
not confuse the VICUG-L server. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Hi All,

Two new demonstration WAV sound samples are meant to illustrate
the experimental seeing-with-sound technology, which automatically
translates images into corresponding "soundscapes". Just download
and listen to two small audio samples from the direct URLs below
at

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voiscopebw.wav

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voiscopebw2.wav

File sizes are only 22K and 44K, respectively. The second sound
sample is a slow-motion version of the first sound sample. Put your
WAV player to autorepeat to hear the one and two second samples
over and over for mental analysis. Can you hear the single period of
the sine wave curve going up, down, and then up again? Can you hear
the bright squares as little noise bursts at various positions within
the sound image? There are ten of these little squares. Pitch always
indicates vertical position, and stereo panning from left to right
indicates horizontal position of any visual items. Loudness matches
brightness. If you are interested in this experimental
seeing-with-sound technology, you can read more about it and obtain
free evaluation software from the following web page URL:

The vOICe Learning Edition
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvoice.htm

Have fun, and you are welcome to report any of your findings!

Best wishes,

Peter Meijer


Seeing with Sound - The vOICe
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/


P.S. A more detailed description of the above soundscapes
follows below:

There is a dark grey tiled background, 10 squares wide and 8
squares high. The tiles are separated by thin black lines. Upon
the soft noise background of the dark tiles, there is one period
of a sine wave, a bright curve that goes up, down and then up
again. You will hear the sweeping tone for this curve. In
addition, 10 of the 80 background tiles have been given a
lighter shade of grey, almost white in fact. You can hear out
these ten tiles at various positions. There are five squares
in a row positioned near the top right, giving a high-pitched
rhythm with very brief interruptions for the thin black lines
separating these squares. Right beneath the middle square of
this row of squares there is another single square, just above
the lower excursion of the sine wave, and there is also a
square at the lower right corner, giving a brief low-pitched
noise burst at the far right. Finally, there are three squares
near the lower left of the image: two in a row and a third one
positioned one tile up immediately to the right of these two
neighbouring squares.

Now you will probably find that you have no major problems
hearing all the details, but you may also find that your brain
often tricks you into hearing one or a few items while
suppressing some other items. For instance, with the one-second
soundscape in particular it may easily happen that you hear all
of the lower-pitched squares and the sine wave without noticing
the five squares at the upper right, while when you next think
of the high-pitched sound that you ought to hear at the upper
right, you suddenly very clearly hear that sound component again
but in shifting your attention you may loose track of perceiving
some of the other items. The fact that you can hear all
components by shifting your attention around illustrates that
it is a brain thing, and not something having to do with your
ears. Apparently it is not quite easy for the brain to put all
audible pieces together into a single mental view. That's what
we probably need practice for.

In case you want to import the image for a more detailed
investigation, using audio zoom (function key F4 and arrow
keys), you can obtain the GIF image file from which the
soundscapes were created at the direct download URL

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voiscopebw.gif

and import it into The vOICe Learning Edition software via
the file requester by pressing Control O. Note that the
default contrast enhancement (function key F6) had been
turned off when creating the soundscapes for this artificial
image. Sighted readers can use the image to compare the image
directly to the soundscapes to verify the close correspondence.


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