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Data Sonification and Sound Visualization
Hans G. Kaper
Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory
Sever Tipei
School of Music, University of Illinois
Elizabeth Wiebel
Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory
Abstract
This article describes a collaborative project between researchers in the
Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Labora-
tory and the Computer Music Project of the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. The project focuses on the use of sound for the exploration and
analysis of complex data sets in scientific computing. The article addresses dig-
ital sound synthesis in the context of DIASS (Digital Instrument for Additive
Sound Synthesis) and sound visualization in a virtual-reality environment by
means of M4CAVE. It describes the procedures and preliminary results of some
experiments in scientific sonification and sound visualization.
While most computational scientists routinely use visual imaging techniques to ex-
plore and analyze large data sets, they tend to be much less familiar with the use of
sound. Yet, sound signals carry significant amounts of information and can be used
advantageously to increase the bandwidth of the human/computer interface. The
project described in this article focuses on scientific sonification—the faithful render-
ing of scientific data in sounds—and the visualization of sounds in a virtual-reality
environment. The project, which grew out of an effort to apply the latest super-
computing technology to the process of music composition (see Box 1), is a joint
collaboration between Argonne National Laboratory (ANL, Mathematics and Com-
puter Science Division) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC,
Computer Music Project).
Digital sound synthesis is addressed in Section 1; the discussion centers on DI-
ASS (Digital Instrument for Additive Sound Synthesis). Section 2 describes some
experiments in scientific sonification. Sound visualization in a virtual-reality (VR)
environment is discussed in Section 3; here, the main tool is M4CAVE, a program to
visualize sounds from a score file. Section 4 contains some general observations about
the project.
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