4 ms·

One day I want to build something like this, except for sound. It would be great to get a heading and distance for where a sound is coming from. This could be

One day I want to build something like this, except for sound. It would be great to get a heading and distance for where a sound is coming from. This could be both for small scale things (e.g. which part of this is squeaking?) or large scale (e.g. is that booming noise coming from the construction a few blocks away?)

flutas 3mo ago
Not sure if you've heard of them, but they're starting to come to market with this exact thing aside from distance detection and more on the "which part is squeaking" side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-5lSVCR2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-5lSVCR2w
dfc 3mo ago
Fluke has made an acoustic imager for a while now. It is used for detecting leaks: https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/industrial-imaging/fluke-ii905 https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/industrial-imaging/fluke...
- geerlingguy 3mo ago
  There are a few knockoff options too, which are not quite as nicely calibrated, but get the job done for much less than Fluke-level prices. Like the FOTRIC TD2. I think a few people have made homebrew versions too, like this one mentioned on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45137584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45137584
  - m463 3mo ago
    interesting on amazon: fluke $25k flir $10k td2 $1k These are the kinds of things you look at and think - maybe I DO need night-vision, or a soldering iron with a cpu, or a thermal imager, or a steerable endoscope or now an acoustic imager....
    - thomashabets2 3mo ago
      If you own your home I'd say you need a thermal imager. Just the ability to diagnose clogged pipes is priceless. https://x.com/ThermoInstagram/status/909356506059026432 https://x.com/ThermoInstagram/status/909356506059026432 Also for checking if microwaved food is ready.
      - left-struck 3mo ago
        Can also be used for looking at heat leaking into or out of your house via conduction, which can help you determine where there might be more insulation needed, or maybe a particular wall needs more shade in summer.
      - greggsy 3mo ago
        +1 to thermal imager. I use mine to locate hot wires, heating and cooling gaps in the roof and around windows, car maintenance, the pizza oven, and its even sensitive enough to ‘see’ studs in the wall. Priceless on one occasion for finding leaks in the ceiling, which are notoriously hard to pinpoint.
        m463 3mo ago
        > and its even sensitive enough to ‘see’ studs in the wall. oooh my. My studfinder is always a little uncertain. I would love a second opinion.
- its_down_again 3mo ago
  Has anyone tried acoustic imaging for water leaks inside walls? I live in a multi-floor 1900s Victorian. A leak can affect several units, and tracing the source can mean opening walls or floors in multiple places, and coordinating access has been getting harder with less WFH. Could one of these tools help map water pipe routes and trace a leak, or are they only going to be useful for air and gas leaks?
  - iamniels 3mo ago
    For a water leak a sound imaging device is not going to help you. You should definitely try a thermal camera. Any moisture will create small temperature differences which are easily picked up by a thermal camera.
    - cluckindan 3mo ago
      Moisture camera. Now there is an idea.
      - fc417fc802 3mo ago
        Initially I scoffed, but then I recalled that certain RF bands are disproportionately absorbed by water and this is used for certain sorts of atmospheric imaging by satellites. So you'd need a moisture "light" and an RF camera. Other than being cost prohibitive it sounds like an awesome toy.
        archi42 3mo ago
        It still works pretty well in the IR band. I know that one from experience due to storm damage to our roof ;-) A leak only turns invisible if the water has the exact same temperature as the wall and there is no meaningful evaporation happening (as that cools the affected area). Of course don't let me stop you from actively probing your all using RF. Though also there you might have good chances with IR, since wet $stuff should behave differently than dry $stuff ;-)
        deleted 3mo ago
cenamus 3mo ago
I think you'll be very interested in this awesome project https://ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/29/the-daredevil-camera/ https://ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/29/the-daredevil-camera/
tzs 3mo ago
Like in this Steve Mould video, "Acoustic cameras can SEE sound" [1]? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw
Torkel 3mo ago
There are products in this space, eg https://www.crysound.com/ https://www.crysound.com/ Very cool stuff, can be used for drone detection at up to 200m. Accuracy is not super good, unless you make mic spacing a bit large.
simplyalec 3mo ago
I've seen http://soundryx.com/ http://soundryx.com/
andrehacker 3mo ago
[dead]
hinkley 3mo ago
The army has one of these for sniper triangulation, and Boeing made a civilian version for optimizing sound dampening on the 787. I don’t know if they kept doing that on subsequent planes but I would expect so given how enthusiastic they were about being able to apply the weight budget to greater effect. You need really high clock rate sensing to differentiate the arrival time for sound from microphone arrays where they are all less than a nanosecond separated from each other.
- a_paddy 3mo ago
  Given that it was McDonnell Douglas, sorry Boeing, they probably cut it.
  - hinkley 3mo ago
    Why don’t you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice into it?
- azalemeth 3mo ago
  A nanosecond? The speed of sound at sea level in dry air is approximately 330m/s. So at say 3.3 kHz, the rough logarithmic middle of the audible spectrum, K=2π/lambda is 2π/0.1 m=20 π rad/m. A phase difference from a source difference k. ∆r would therefore likely be far more easily resolved than that for many physical ∆rs then, no?
  - KaiserPro 3mo ago
    MAybe the high clock rate it to allow it to read the output of the ADCs serially?
  - hinkley 3mo ago
    Whups. Sound not light. Sensors around 12.5 inches apart will be a millisecond separated. The actual device was from a fuzzy recollection of a picture I saw, was probably 700 microseconds across. But it was a sphere with many sensor so adjacent sensors were less than .1 ms of separation. They would have all the time in the world to calibrate such a thing. My guess is rather than triangulation, they probably just find the two microphones with the widest phase separarion between their signals and draw a line back between them. I don’t actually know how much 3D sonic math they’re doing. What I do recall is that it was tech that had recently reached the Cheap Enough to Use status at the time, which is about 20 years ago now?
piinbinary 3mo ago
ChatGPT tells me that it would take a very large array to detect distance with any accuracy
mrtnmcc 3mo ago
Realtime sound visualization was actually a project I did 20 years ago as a freshman and that (probably?) inspired me to build this AR app in QuadRF. On balance, I would say this RF version was 200x harder.
wyager 3mo ago
There's a company in Austin that uses sound for drone localization, although I forget the name
wkjagt 3mo ago
Steve Mould did a cool video on this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw
lowbloodsugar 3mo ago
I want that but for smell.
- NopIdoN 3mo ago
  You could try training wasps.
- amelius 3mo ago
  Nobody can do that. Use dogs.
tenuousemphasis 3mo ago
You should visit Orfield Labs in Minnesota.
KaiserPro 3mo ago
respeaker and https://github.com/introlab/odas https://github.com/introlab/odas might be a good starting point without having to make hardware. Making the hardware is fairly achievable without having to do fancy things. but if you want >8 channels you'll need to make some custom interface hardware.

flutas 3mo ago

Not sure if you've heard of them, but they're starting to come to market with this exact thing aside from distance detection and more on the "which part is squeaking" side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-5lSVCR2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-5lSVCR2w

dfc 3mo ago

Fluke has made an acoustic imager for a while now. It is used for detecting leaks: https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/industrial-imaging/fluke-ii905 https://www.fluke.com/en-us/product/industrial-imaging/fluke...

geerlingguy 3mo ago
There are a few knockoff options too, which are not quite as nicely calibrated, but get the job done for much less than Fluke-level prices. Like the FOTRIC TD2. I think a few people have made homebrew versions too, like this one mentioned on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45137584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45137584
- m463 3mo ago
  interesting on amazon: fluke $25k flir $10k td2 $1k These are the kinds of things you look at and think - maybe I DO need night-vision, or a soldering iron with a cpu, or a thermal imager, or a steerable endoscope or now an acoustic imager....
  - thomashabets2 3mo ago
    If you own your home I'd say you need a thermal imager. Just the ability to diagnose clogged pipes is priceless. https://x.com/ThermoInstagram/status/909356506059026432 https://x.com/ThermoInstagram/status/909356506059026432 Also for checking if microwaved food is ready.
    - left-struck 3mo ago
      Can also be used for looking at heat leaking into or out of your house via conduction, which can help you determine where there might be more insulation needed, or maybe a particular wall needs more shade in summer.
    - greggsy 3mo ago
      +1 to thermal imager. I use mine to locate hot wires, heating and cooling gaps in the roof and around windows, car maintenance, the pizza oven, and its even sensitive enough to ‘see’ studs in the wall. Priceless on one occasion for finding leaks in the ceiling, which are notoriously hard to pinpoint.
      - m463 3mo ago
        > and its even sensitive enough to ‘see’ studs in the wall. oooh my. My studfinder is always a little uncertain. I would love a second opinion.
its_down_again 3mo ago
Has anyone tried acoustic imaging for water leaks inside walls? I live in a multi-floor 1900s Victorian. A leak can affect several units, and tracing the source can mean opening walls or floors in multiple places, and coordinating access has been getting harder with less WFH. Could one of these tools help map water pipe routes and trace a leak, or are they only going to be useful for air and gas leaks?
- iamniels 3mo ago
  For a water leak a sound imaging device is not going to help you. You should definitely try a thermal camera. Any moisture will create small temperature differences which are easily picked up by a thermal camera.
  - cluckindan 3mo ago
    Moisture camera. Now there is an idea.
    - fc417fc802 3mo ago
      Initially I scoffed, but then I recalled that certain RF bands are disproportionately absorbed by water and this is used for certain sorts of atmospheric imaging by satellites. So you'd need a moisture "light" and an RF camera. Other than being cost prohibitive it sounds like an awesome toy.
      - archi42 3mo ago
        It still works pretty well in the IR band. I know that one from experience due to storm damage to our roof ;-) A leak only turns invisible if the water has the exact same temperature as the wall and there is no meaningful evaporation happening (as that cools the affected area). Of course don't let me stop you from actively probing your all using RF. Though also there you might have good chances with IR, since wet $stuff should behave differently than dry $stuff ;-)
      - deleted 3mo ago

cenamus 3mo ago

I think you'll be very interested in this awesome project https://ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/29/the-daredevil-camera/ https://ribbonfarm.com/2016/06/29/the-daredevil-camera/

tzs 3mo ago

Like in this Steve Mould video, "Acoustic cameras can SEE sound" [1]? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw

Torkel 3mo ago

There are products in this space, eg https://www.crysound.com/ https://www.crysound.com/ Very cool stuff, can be used for drone detection at up to 200m. Accuracy is not super good, unless you make mic spacing a bit large.

simplyalec 3mo ago

I've seen http://soundryx.com/ http://soundryx.com/

andrehacker 3mo ago

[dead]

hinkley 3mo ago

The army has one of these for sniper triangulation, and Boeing made a civilian version for optimizing sound dampening on the 787. I don’t know if they kept doing that on subsequent planes but I would expect so given how enthusiastic they were about being able to apply the weight budget to greater effect. You need really high clock rate sensing to differentiate the arrival time for sound from microphone arrays where they are all less than a nanosecond separated from each other.

a_paddy 3mo ago
Given that it was McDonnell Douglas, sorry Boeing, they probably cut it.
- hinkley 3mo ago
  Why don’t you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice into it?
azalemeth 3mo ago
A nanosecond? The speed of sound at sea level in dry air is approximately 330m/s. So at say 3.3 kHz, the rough logarithmic middle of the audible spectrum, K=2π/lambda is 2π/0.1 m=20 π rad/m. A phase difference from a source difference k. ∆r would therefore likely be far more easily resolved than that for many physical ∆rs then, no?
- KaiserPro 3mo ago
  MAybe the high clock rate it to allow it to read the output of the ADCs serially?
- hinkley 3mo ago
  Whups. Sound not light. Sensors around 12.5 inches apart will be a millisecond separated. The actual device was from a fuzzy recollection of a picture I saw, was probably 700 microseconds across. But it was a sphere with many sensor so adjacent sensors were less than .1 ms of separation. They would have all the time in the world to calibrate such a thing. My guess is rather than triangulation, they probably just find the two microphones with the widest phase separarion between their signals and draw a line back between them. I don’t actually know how much 3D sonic math they’re doing. What I do recall is that it was tech that had recently reached the Cheap Enough to Use status at the time, which is about 20 years ago now?

piinbinary 3mo ago

ChatGPT tells me that it would take a very large array to detect distance with any accuracy

mrtnmcc 3mo ago

Realtime sound visualization was actually a project I did 20 years ago as a freshman and that (probably?) inspired me to build this AR app in QuadRF. On balance, I would say this RF version was 200x harder.

wyager 3mo ago

There's a company in Austin that uses sound for drone localization, although I forget the name

wkjagt 3mo ago

Steve Mould did a cool video on this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QtMTvsi-4Hw

lowbloodsugar 3mo ago

I want that but for smell.

NopIdoN 3mo ago
You could try training wasps.
amelius 3mo ago
Nobody can do that. Use dogs.

tenuousemphasis 3mo ago

You should visit Orfield Labs in Minnesota.

KaiserPro 3mo ago

respeaker and https://github.com/introlab/odas https://github.com/introlab/odas might be a good starting point without having to make hardware. Making the hardware is fairly achievable without having to do fancy things. but if you want >8 channels you'll need to make some custom interface hardware.