An object, beyond its image
What would it take to preserve not only how a musical instrument looks, but how it sounds, behaves and can be studied?
A photograph records an appearance. A recording captures a particular sounding event. A three-dimensional model describes geometry. Each makes something about an instrument accessible, but none alone carries the whole research context.
A Virtual Acoustic Object (VAO) connects these representations in an explicit, versioned research object. Descriptive information, recordings, measurements, images, geometry and interaction data can be related to their sources, rights and exact files.
AudioRecordings & measurements
GeometryShape & spatial context
VIRTUAL ACOUSTIC OBJECTA shared manifestIdentity · relations · provenance
InteractionActions & declared capabilities
EvidenceSources, rights & exact files
A connection between evidence and experience
The exchange standard and the experience are separate. A VAO package is a fixed dataset; a viewer or runtime interprets the capabilities it declares. An object can support a spatial model, sampled playback or an analytical view without implying that every package supports every experience.
Follow one note through the object
Consider a single recorded organ note. To interpret it, a listener needs more than an audio file: which instrument and stop sounded, which key was pressed, when the recording was made, how the microphones were positioned and whether the signal has been edited. A view of the pipe or keyboard adds another perspective, but only an explicit relationship tells the reader whether that geometry belongs to the recorded configuration.
A VAO gives these resources a common, inspectable context. The note can remain connected to its source take; a playback region can identify a selection within that take; a derived model can point to the measurements used to construct it. The experience becomes a route back to the research, rather than the final destination of the data.
Cuntz · Released record#
Is the 3D model the Cuntz organ?
An ontology is an explicit agreement about the kinds of things we describe and the relationships between them. Its first useful distinction here is between an instrument and a representation of it.
Work through the example 3 STEPS
The physical Cuntz positive organ is identified as mXp 4010243. The release also contains a geometric model and audio files. They concern the instrument, but each has its own identity.
Name the physical subject
Use the instrument identity for claims about the organ itself. Its record can link to the museum and to documentary evidence.
Name each representation
Give a model, a recording and a playable software product separate identities. A relationship such as “represents this instrument” connects them without declaring them the same thing.
Follow a change
Compressing the model changes its digital realization. It does not rebuild the museum instrument. Repairing a physical component is a different event and needs its own evidence.
BASIS FOR THIS EXAMPLE
- Cuntz Positiv · VAO 0.5.0-rc.2 ↗
Published manifest: identities, measurement observations, realization digests, profiles and rights. Exact examples checked against this release.
- MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0 ↗
Identity, state, configuration, evidence, assertions, context and provenance. Teaching examples explain its distinctions without inventing new normative properties.
The displayed model is a derived visualization with an unverified physical scale. Being about the Cuntz organ does not make every visible detail a measured historical fact.
The useful distinction. An identity answers “which thing?”; a representation relationship answers “what is this about?”.
What the object connects
| Perspective | What to keep with it |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Images, geometry, scale, coordinate frames and capture history. |
| Sound | Original signals, channel identities, tuning, recording conditions and derivatives. |
| Action | Control mappings, event timing and the capabilities required by a player. |
| Interpretation | Claims, evidence, uncertainty and the historical state being represented. |
A package can be useful without being complete
An image-and-audio release can support a well-defined study even if no playable instrument has been built. Likewise, an interactive reconstruction may deliberately explore an earlier configuration rather than document the surviving object. The useful question is what the release claims to represent and what evidence supports that claim. Declared scope lets readers compare unlike packages without mistaking a polished experience for comprehensive documentation.
Sources & further reading
- VAO Standard 0.5.0
The versioned specification and reference tools.
- MODAVIS Ontology Network 0.1.0
The published semantic model.
- Dominik Ukolov · Musikinstrumente im virtuellen Raum (2026)
Dissertation submitted to Universität Leipzig, 11 September 2026. Chapters 1–6 and 8; Appendix I.4 for the software and resource inventory. See the dedicated research guides for claim-specific section references. Page numbers refer to the printed manuscript pagination. The manuscript is not distributed by this website.
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