Application of binaural audio techniques for immersive fruition of cultural heritage

In this paper we address the issue of enriching the fruition of museums and art shows for the visitors. We preliminary consider the design of an immersive audio environment by means of 3D audio rendering, aiming to provide each user a deeper connection with each exhibited artwork. By exploiting a real-time binaural audio system, artworks become virtual sources of the audio guide voice, making the user perceive they personally speak to her/him. As an advantage, the implementation of the proposed framework relies on basic audio and signal processing techniques, that is, no expensive or personalized equipment for the visitors is required. Furthermore, since the proposed method is independent of the recording stage, existing audio tracks or even real-time speech can be used.