Near-field audio rendering

A system comprising:

• a wearable head device;
• one or more speakers;
• and
• one or more processors configured to perform a method comprising:
• identifying a source location corresponding to an audio signal;
• determining a reference point based on a spatial relationship between the wearable head device and a head of a user of the wearable head device;
• and
• for each of a respective left ear and right ear of the user:
• determining, for a virtual speaker array, a virtual speaker position substantially collinear with the source location and a position of the respective ear, wherein the virtual speaker array comprises a plurality of virtual speaker positions, each virtual speaker position of the plurality of virtual speaker positions located on the surface of a sphere concentric with the reference point, the sphere having a first radius;
• determining a head-related transfer function (HRTF) corresponding to the virtual speaker position;
• generating, based on the HRTF and based further on the audio signal, an output audio signal for the respective ear;
• attenuating the audio signal based on a distance between the source location and the respective ear wherein the distance is clamped at a minimum value;
• and
• presenting the output audio signal to the respective ear of the user via the one or more speakers.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, which when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform a method of presenting an audio signal to a user of a wearable head device, the method comprising:

• identifying a source location corresponding to the audio signal;
• determining a reference point based on a spatial relationship between a head of the user and the wearable head device;
• and
• for each of a respective left ear and right ear of the user:
• determining, for a virtual speaker array, a virtual speaker position substantially collinear with the source location and a position of the respective ear, wherein the virtual speaker array comprises a plurality of virtual speaker positions, each virtual speaker position of the plurality of virtual speaker positions located on the surface of a sphere concentric with the reference point, the sphere having a first radius;
• determining a head-related transfer function (HRTF) corresponding to the virtual speaker position;
• generating, based on the HRTF and based further on the audio signal, an output audio signal for the respective ear;
• attenuating the audio signal based on a distance between the source location and the respective ear wherein the distance is clamped at a minimum value;
• and
• presenting the output audio signal to the respective ear of the user via one or more speakers associated with the wearable head device.