The Open Directional Audio File Format (OpenDAFF) is a new free and open-source software package for directional audio data, like directivities of sound sources (e.g. loudspeakers, musical instruments) and sound receivers (e.g. microphones, head-related transfer functions, HRIRs/HRTFs). OpenDAFF enables the exchange, representation and efficient of such data in form of single DAFF files (*.DAFF).

Under the term 'software package' OpenDAFF unites the DAFF file format, a C++ software library for reading such directional audio files, as well as Matlab scripts for their creation and reading. The package is complemented by helpful tools, e.g. a graphical viewer for DAFF directional audio data, (called DAFFViewer) and a command-line utility (called DAFFTool).

The objective of the OpenDAFF project is to create a free and open-source format, that aims to ease and facilitate the interchange of directional audio data. OpenDAFF has been developed at the Institute of Technical Acoustics (ITA) at RWTH University, Germany in the context of real-time auralization. Consequently, are a minimal computational overhead as well as small memory footprints major design principles.

The project is still under development, but a large number of features is already usable. A first specification of the file format and the software package is on the way. Currently you can write DAFF files with Matlab and read/write them via Matlab und C++. The utility programs are also developed to a large extent.

In order to keep in touch with the project, we suggest to register to the opendaff-users mailinglist.