Visualization of sound field by means of Schlieren method with spatio-temporal filtering

Visualization of sound field using Schlieren technique provides many advantages. It enables us to investigate the change of the sound field in real-time from every point of the observing region. However, since the density gradient of air caused by the disturbance of acoustic field is very small, it is difficult to observe the audible sound field from the raw Schlieren video. In this paper, to enhance visibility of the audible sound fields from the Schlieren videos, we propose to use spatio-temporal filters for extracting sound information and for noise removal. We have utilized different filtering techniques such as the FIR bandpass filter, the Gaussian filter, the Wiener filter and the 3D Gabor filter, to do this. The results indicate that the data observed after using these signal processing methods are clearer than the raw Schlieren videos.