An Open Realtime Binaural Synthesis Toolkit for Audio Research

Binaural synthesis has gained fundamental importance both as a practical sound reproduction method and as a tool in audio research. Binaural rendering requires significant implementation effort, especially if head movement tracking or dynamic sound scenes are required, thus impeding audio research. For this reason we propose the Binaural Synthesis Toolkit (BST), a portable, open source, and extensible software package for binaural synthesis. In this paper we present the design of the BST and the three rendering approaches currently implemented. In contrast to most other software, the BST can easily be adapted and extended by users. The Binaural Synthesis Toolkit is released as an open software package as a flexible solution for binaural reproduction and to foster reproducible research in this field.