Today I would like to cover the topic of Audio Visualization. Audio visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of audio. The imagery is usually generated and rendered in real time and in a way synchronized with the music as it is played.

The first electronic music visualizer was the Atari Video Music introduced by Atari Inc. in 1976, and designed by the initiator of the home version of Pong, Robert Brown. The idea was to create a visual exploration that could be implemented into a Hi-Fi stereo system. PC computer music visualization became widespread in the mid to late 1990s as the technology got better. With the increasing popularity of virtual realityin recent times, several startups have begun working on music visualization.

There have been applications of electronic music visualization in order to enhance the music listening experience for the deaf and hard of hearing. Richard Burn, a PhD candidate at Birmingham City University, is currently researching a device that displays detailed visual feedback from electronic instruments. These visuals will provide information on the specifics of what is being played, such as the pitch and the harmonics of the sound. This allows deaf musicians to better understand what notes they are playing, which enables them to create music in a new way.

Robert Hodgin is currently the I am the Interactive Director and Co-Founder of the Design + Technology studio Rare Volume. His work ranges from simple 2D data visualizations to immersive 3D terrain simulations. His primary interests include theoretical physics, astronomy, particle engines, and audio visualizations. I work in Cinder, OpenGL, and GLSL. robert states that he “created Solar in 2007. It originally came about because I was working on a demo for a talk I was to give at UCLA. It quickly became one of my more popular works. It features a magnetism and gravity sandbox where particles react to the intensity of the audio.”

This is another project from Robert Hiding he decided to work with Adobe and their logo. He explores what it looks like to throw objects at the Adobe logo. All kinds of objects ranging from simple shapes like cubes and spheres, to more complex forms like teapots and mannequins. At this stage he was not very experienced with making it look realistic, he was still getting a handle on how to use the physics library. There are a lot of parameters that need fine tuning in order to make a simulation that looks credible. Minor adjustments to physical properties like mass and inertia can make things look heavy or light, tiny or gigantic.

http://roberthodgin.com/portfolio/ HIs portfolio includes all of his amazing work over the years

This clip includes 30 examples of audio visualizers today used with music. If you quickly skip through the video you will notice how many different types of forms these types of visualizations can take. There is no end to what you can create with sound and your computer. Many of these will eventually appear in the virtual reality world or even while you are streaming music your device could be playing these graphics in real time as you are listening to the music.