Preview Tab

The Preview Tab provides controls for using Impulse’s real-time acoustic preview system (also called “auralization”).

The first section of the interface is for doing object selection. This determines the origin point used in the preview, and the listener point. You can only select one “Sound Source to Use”, and one “Listener to Use”.

Settings

There are a few different preview-specific controls which alter the simulation’s behavior, as well as the real-time audio processing;

• Reflection Depth: A preview-specific reflection depth which differs from the simulation view’s “Trace Depth”. Not able to be set as high as the Trace Depth, as a different algorithm is used in the case of the preview path tracer.
• Multiband Mode: Toggles between if multiband audio processing is used in the preview system, or a lower quality wideband representation. Turning this on can increase preview audio quality at the cost of being less CPU efficient.
• Late Reflections: Toggles if late reflections are processed or not.
• Spatial Mode: Changes what kind of spatial processing occurs in the real-time audio process. Mono & Stereo modes are very CPU efficient, whereas the binaural mode is more realistic for headphone users, at the cost of efficiency.

Play {#play}

The play section is for toggling if the real-time processing is active or not, additionally, you set the input type in this section.

The first of the controls in this section is the “Preview Source” selector, which changes what kind of input audio the preview processor will take in.

The audio file mode will take in whatever audio file has been provided in the audio file input.

The live input mode will take in the first 2 channels of input audio that are provided by your input audio device, and you can control how the input channels are summed with the “Input Summing Mode” dropdown.

Finally, there are input and output meters & gain sliders, which allow you to monitor and adjust the input and output levels of the real time preview system.