Simulator Sound Objects - A Proposal for an Open Standard on Sound Components for Driving Simulators

For sound simulations of a fixed driving condition a sound file format in one of the many accepted standard formats is more than acceptable. However, for real-time, driver-in-the-loop, simulations a single sound file is no longer adequate. Sounds for each physical component must be created in real-time from a collection of look-up tables or reference sounds. While these may still be represented as a collection of individual sound files the practical organizational and portability requirements dictate that the data would be better represented as a single sound object containing additional information on attributes of the collection and how it interfaces with the vehicle driving model. This paper discusses the various requirements of a simulator sound component and proposes an open standard for the interchange of components between systems.