This question follows from Modelling propagation of sound wave by particle simulation
This last fortnight I have started experimenting with Binaural audio; it really blows everything else out of the water.
The main reason it hasn't taken off, I think, is that every individual needs to get their own HRTF calculated, which consists of sitting in a soundproof room with microphones in your ear canals, while something makes popping noises at thousands of locations around you.
I'm only aware of one service provider that may calculate your HRTF: http://www.physiol.usyd.edu.au/~simonc/hrtf_rec.htm and they are in Australia!
I'm wondering whether a more practical method may emerge, which would involve taking a 3-D scan of one's head (maybe using something like http://www.david-3d.com/) and shipping it off for a heavy dose of distributed computing which would return HRTFs for that individual.
I wonder if we may see a day where people have their own HRTF data stored in the cloud, and can enjoy binaural sound on their iPods.
How far away is such a technology? And other any other contenders for measuring HRTF?
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PS could we possibly have some more tags like "binaural", "hrtf/hrir"