Footstep sounds synthesis: Design, implementation, and evaluation of foot–floor interactions, surface materials, shoe types, and walkers’ features

What do your footsteps sound like? An investigation on interactive footstep sounds adjustment

“…Along the same lines, it has been proven that the hardness of the sole of the shoes is clearly identifyable both in real footstep sounds produced by walking on solid ground materials [18], and in synthesized footstep sounds simulating walking on materials of various typologies [13]. Various studies have also shown that both real and synthesized footstep sounds are effective in conveying information about gender and anthropometric features of the walker [19,18,20,13]. All those studies consistently revealed that the auditory perception of gender, height, and weight of a walker depends primarily on the footstep sound spectral characteristics.…”

“…Based on the results about the auditory perception of sole hardness in footstep sounds reported by Giordano et al [18] and Turchet [13], we hypothesized that participants would have produced greater amplitudes for hard sole shoes than for soft sole shoes in presence of solid surfaces, while similar amplitudes for both types of shoes would have been found for aggregate, hybrids, and liquids. In addition, given that previous works showed how shifting the spectral content of walking sounds influences not only the perceived body size of a heard walker [19,18,20,13], but also the self body size perception [22], we expected a negative correlation between participants' size and spectral centroid. Along the same lines, we hypothesized a positive correlation between participants' size and participants' choices of the sounds' amplitude since the heavier and taller the person, the greater the ground reaction force, i.e., the reaction force produced by the ground at every step [25], and consequently the louder the sound.…”

“…Recently, a novel footstep sound synthesizer based on such a method has been developed [13]. The synthesizer is capable of simulating several types of foot-floor interactions (e.g., different types of steps in walking and running or the sliding of the foot on the floor), different types of shoes and ground materials (solid, aggregate, liquid, and hybrids), as well as some anthropometric features of the walkers (i.e., body size and foot length).…”

“…Research about auditory perception of both real and synthesized walkedupon ground materials has shown that humans are capable of classifying with high accuracy the material typology, such as solid (e.g., concrete, wood), ag-gregate (e.g., gravel, snow), liquid (e.g., water) or hybrid (e.g., mud), but are less precise in discriminating materials belonging to the same typology (e.g., wood can be identified as concrete) [16,17,13]. Along the same lines, it has been proven that the hardness of the sole of the shoes is clearly identifyable both in real footstep sounds produced by walking on solid ground materials [18], and in synthesized footstep sounds simulating walking on materials of various typologies [13]. Various studies have also shown that both real and synthesized footstep sounds are effective in conveying information about gender and anthropometric features of the walker [19,18,20,13].…”

Estudio de la transmisión de vibraciones por impacto en losas de hormigón y mortero

“…De tal forma que se puede describir no solo la fuerza provocada al andar en función del tiempo, sino que también se puede expresar en términos de su desarrollo en serie de Fourier, con frecuencias que sean múltiplos de las frecuencias comunes al andar, es decir, entre 1.6 y 2.4 Hz. Por otro lado, estas frecuencias no son iguales si se trata de una única persona o de un grupo de ellas, y tampoco si se trata de un conjunto de personas realizando una actividad coordinada con algún movimiento o no [42].…”