Sound field forming apparatus and method

A sound field forming method, comprising:

• in a sound field forming apparatus that includes a listener position acquisition section, a drive speaker selection section, and a drive signal generation section:
• acquiring, by the listener position acquisition section, listener positional information indicating a position of a listener;
• selecting, by the drive speaker selection section, a set of speakers of a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, based on the listener positional information and information related to a height of a position of an ear of the listener, wherein
• the plurality of speakers forms a speaker array,
• among the plurality of speakers, the selected set of speakers is nearest to the listener in a first direction parallel to a second direction in which the plurality of speakers of the speaker array is arrayed, and
• a height of one of the selected set of speakers corresponds to the height of the position of the ear of the listener;
• increasing, by the drive speaker selection section, a number of speakers in the set of speakers selected as the drive speaker, wherein
• the increase of the number of speakers is based on an increase in a distance of the listener from the speaker array in a third direction perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction;
• forming, by the drive speaker, a sound field based on a sound wave output from the drive speaker in the third direction perpendicular to the second direction;
• driving the drive speaker by the drive signal generation section;
• and
• generating, by the drive signal generation section, a speaker drive signal for the formation of the sound field,
• wherein the speaker drive signal is generated based on a selection result of the drive speaker.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to execute operations, the operations comprising:

• acquiring listener positional information indicating a position of a listener;
• selecting a set of speakers of a plurality of speakers, as a drive speaker, based on the listener positional information and information related to a height of a position of an ear of the listener, wherein
• the plurality of speakers forms a speaker array,
• among the plurality of speakers, the selected set of speakers is nearest to the listener in a first direction parallel to a second direction in which the plurality of speakers of the speaker array is arrayed, and
• a height of one of the selected set of speakers corresponds to the height of the position of the ear of the listener;
• increasing a number of speakers in the set of speakers selected as the drive speaker, wherein
• the increase of the number of speakers is based on an increase in a distance of the listener from the speaker array in a third direction perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction, and
• the drive speaker is configured to form a sound field based on a sound wave output from the drive speaker in the third direction perpendicular to the second direction;
• driving the drive speaker;
• and
• generating a speaker driving signal for the formation of the sound field,
• wherein the speaker drive signal is generated based on a selection result of the drive speaker.