What is SOFA

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) describe the spatial filtering of the incoming sound. So far available HRTFs are stored in various formats, making an exchange of HRTFs difficult because of incompatibilities between the formats. We propose a format for storing HRTFs with a focus on interchangeability and extendability. The spatially oriented format for acoustics (SOFA) aims at representing HRTFs in a general way, thus, allowing to store data such as directional room impulse responses (DRIRs) measured with a microphone-array excited by a loudspeaker array. SOFA specifications consider data compression, network transfer, a link to complex room geometries, and aim at simplifying the development of programming interfaces for Matlab, Octave, and C++. SOFA conventions for a consistent description of measurement setups are provided for future HRTF and DRIR databases.