Filtering sounds for conferencing applications

A conferencing method, comprising:

• capturing, via a plurality of microphones of a spatially-diverse microphone array, real-world sounds produced by one or more real-world sources having real-world positioning within a physical environment;
• combining the real-world sounds and virtual sounds into an audio stream, the virtual sounds produced by one or more virtual audio sources having virtualized real-world positioning within the physical environment;
• displaying a virtual object via an augmented reality display device, the virtual object representing the virtual audio source at a corresponding virtualized real-world positioning;
• selectively filtering the virtual sounds from the audio stream based on the virtualized real-world positioning of the one or more virtual audio sources;
• and
• transmitting the audio stream to a remote communication device of a communication partner.

A conferencing system, comprising:

• a spatially-diverse microphone array including a plurality of microphones;
• an audio communication interface configured to transmit, to a remote communication device of a communication partner, an audio stream including real-world sounds produced by one or more real-world audio sources captured by the spatially-diverse microphone array and virtual sounds produced by one or more virtual audio sources having virtualized real-world positioning;
• an audio filter configured to selectively amplify or dampen a relative volume of one or more of the real-world sounds and the virtual sounds within the audio stream;
• and
• an augmented reality display device configured to display, within an augmented reality view of a physical space, video received from a remote communication device of the communication partner, and to display graphical indicators identifying observed real-world positioning of the one or more real-world audio sources and the virtualized real-world positioning of the one or more virtual audio sources.