Toward a Novel Set of Pinna Anthropometric Features for Individualizing Head-Related Transfer Functions

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) are essential for spatial audio rendering. However, to provide a proper individual experience, the HRTF should be compliant with the anatomical traits of the listener. Therefore, estimating the individual HRTF based on anthropometric features is a widespread and promising approach. In this work, we propose an extension of the pinna anthropometric parameters commonly used in the related literature. The objective is to provide a more detailed description of the pinna for the purpose of individualizing HRTFs. The entirety of these parameters was extracted using a set of landmarks that were manually annotated on the shape of the pinna. The proposed parameters were compared to the classical ones for selecting the best-match HRTF in the median plane via anthropometry matching. Prior to HRTF selection, we devised a procedure to retain only the relevant anthropometric parameters. The obtained results were evaluated using both objective metrics and auditory model evaluation indicating a significant, though limited, improvement when using the proposed parameters.