HUT ACOUSTICS LAB
VECTOR BASE AMPLITUDE PANNING PROJECT

INTRODUCTION

Vector Base Amplitude Panning (VBAP) is a method for positioning virtual sources to multiple loudspeakers. The number of loudspeakers can be varying and they can be placed in an arbitrary 2-D or 3-D positioning. VBAP produces virtual sources that are as sharp as is possible with current loudspeaker configuration and amplitude panning methods, since it uses at one time the minimum number of loudspeakers needed, one, two, or three. The VBAP method has been developed by Ville Pulkki

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VBAP THEORY

VBAP is a new formulation of the traditional panning method in which two or more loudspeakers emanate coherent signal with different amplitudes. In 2-D VBAP the virtual source vector p is set to be a sum of weighted loudspeaker vectors l1 and l2. After the weights g1 and g2 have been calculated and normalized they can be used as gain factors of each channel. It has been proven that the 2-D VBAP follows an existing panning law, tangent law.

3-D VBAP is the first panning method which can be applied to loudspeaker triangle of any shape. The gain factors are calculated similarly as in 2-D case.

VBAP enables use of any number of loudspeakers which can be positioned anywhere. Still the sound emanates only from one, two, or three loudspeakers. The other loudspeakers can be used to produce first reflections and diffuse sound field.

Using VBAP it is possible to create sound fields which are independent of loudspeaker amount and placement, if the sound directions are stored with the audio data. On the other hand the VBAP can be used to create soundfields to to any multichannel format.

The theory of VBAP is presented in Ville Pulkki: "Virtual Sound Source Positioning Using Vector Base Amplitude Panning", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol 45, no 6 1997 June

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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Last modified: 5.08.1997
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