soundem

Soundem is a software framework and standard for modeling, synthesizing, and rendering sound in interactive and simulation environments. It provides a physics-informed approach to sound emission, propagation, and reception, enabling consistent audio pipelines across video games, virtual reality, film production, and architectural acoustics. The framework emphasizes modularity, real-time performance, and cross-platform compatibility.

The name Soundem is a portmanteau of "sound" and "emission" and reflects its focus on how sound is emitted and perceived within a space.

Soundem originated in a collaboration between acoustics researchers and game audio developers in the mid-2010s. The first public iteration appeared in 2018 as a research prototype, with subsequent releases introducing a plugin API and a JSON scene format.

Core components include an emission graph for defining sources and acoustic properties, a propagation engine that computes impulse responses or ray-based envelopes, and a spatializer that renders sound with head-related transfer functions. A materials library models walls, objects, and air, while machine-learning modules support environmental sound event classification and adaptive rendering.

Soundem provides a plugin API for C++ and bindings for Python and Lua, a JSON-based scene description, and export options for convolution impulse responses and real-time impulse responses. It is released under an open-source license with permissive terms.

Adoption has grown among indie developers, VR studios, and research laboratories. Proponents emphasize its physical plausibility and modularity, while critics point to the complexity of setup and performance considerations in very large scenes.